


The Friends We Made Along the Way

by firbolg_boyfriends



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Human AU, M/M, Modern AU, Multi, also it's in san francisco because of Reasons but don't overthink any inaccuracies, also mentions of weed but no actual on-page use, fjord and beau are cousins, i know the title is corny don't @ me, it's just a chill wholesome serial about them living in a cute house together, mainly just something nice to read when u feel anxious, maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way, molly and cad are half siblings, nott and caleb are also kind of related, there's limited plot, they all live in a house together, you don't need to think about the background too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2020-07-23 15:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 64
Words: 78,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20010271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firbolg_boyfriends/pseuds/firbolg_boyfriends
Summary: When distant cousins Fjord and Beau inherit a beautiful Victorian house in San Francisco from an estranged relative, they decide to rent out the extra rooms to a motley combination of tenants: a quirky European art student and her stoic bodyguard, a tea-making mortician and his half-brother who manages to be both attention-loving and secretive, a ~mildly~ shady grad student and his ~mildly~ shady teenage sister. All of them lost souls caught up in the strangeness of life, who happen to find each other sharing a home one year. Maybe this will be the family they've all been missing.





	1. Chapter 1

Beauregard Lionett, colloquially known as Beau, and Oskar Fjordssen, colloquially known as Fjord, had met each other approximately three times during their lives before they decided to move in together. It was less of an actual choice and more of an act of fate and faith; they were distant cousins, and their estranged relative had left them a house in San Francisco since they were the only two members of the family’s youngest generation. Martin Hsu, whom they had each met approximately zero times during their lives, had been the brother of Beau’s grandfather and of Fjord’s grandmother, and had evidently done quite well for himself and amassed a reasonable fortune in the railroad industry and Chinese imports.

The house was a beautiful cream-colored Victorian confection with ivy crawling up the clapboard walls, colorful geraniums in the window boxes, a creaky porch swing, and even a widow’s watch from which one could stand and dramatically stare out at a spectacular view of San Francisco Bay. It was in a fairly affluent neighborhood with a lot of other old homes, and Beau and Fjord certainly would never have dreamed of being able to afford it if they hadn’t inherited it directly from their great-uncle. It was in miraculously good condition.

Beau was tired of living in Albuquerque and Fjord was tired of living in east Texas, so this was the perfect opportunity to start a new chapter of life. Their branches of the family had never been close and so they didn’t know each other particularly well, but a brief phone call revealed that they were both athletes and for them that was enough of a connection to facilitate peaceful cohabitation.

Since the house had five bedrooms, they decided they would each live in one of the bedrooms and rent out the other three. They began meeting with applicants about a month after they moved in.

Caleb Widogast and Nott T. Brave were not technically related by blood, but for all intents and purposes they were inseparable family. Caleb and his father had moved to the United States from Germany when Caleb was sixteen so that his father could marry Nott’s mother. Two years later Nott’s mother passed away and Caleb’s father had moved back to Germany as Caleb began attending college in the United States; Nott, who was eight at the time, decided to live with Caleb.

It was not always easy for the two of them, but Caleb’s father sent them a monthly allowance, and they were both mature and industrious individuals. They quickly became extremely reliant on each other, and each was the most important relationship in the other’s life.

Eight years later, Caleb was working towards his PhD at USF while Nott attended high school. Their landlord had just raised the rent on their apartment without improving the quality of the living space in any tangible way, and so they were now looking for a new place to live. The room that opened up at the lovely Victorian hilltop house was truly serendipitous; it seemed to be exactly what they needed.

Jester Lavorre was the only daughter in an extremely wealthy Ukrainian Roma family who had always dreamed of going to art school in America. Fortunately for her, she was the sort of girl who got everything she wanted. She was now beginning her senior year at the Academy of Art University (a real place, despite its fake-sounding name), but things were changing; her family had made some powerful enemies in the Crimea, and for the sake of Jester’s safety, her parents had sent Yasha, a professional Russian bodyguard, to keep watch over her in San Francisco. Now that she had a living companion, it was necessary for Jester to find a living space larger than her studio apartment in Castro. After browsing through listings, she thought she had finally found a room that was just perfect.


	2. Chapter 2

Beau and Fjord stared questioningly at the odd pair of individuals sitting on the living room sofa opposite them. The furniture in the living room was ostentatious - most of it appeared to have been imported from China several decades ago, and it was all embellished with shimmery colors and elaborate patterns. Interestingly enough, the house’s two newest tenants blended right in.

One of them appeared to be in his mid twenties and the other one… could have easily been nineteen or forty-nine, it was really hard to tell, but he somehow seemed to be the eldest. The younger one had a full head of lavender curls decorated with two large sparkly barrettes, and his ears, hands, neck, and the rest of his body, more or less, were similarly festooned with glittering trinkets. He was wearing extremely tight pastel pink skinny jeans and a saffron-hued paisley button-down knotted around his midsection, revealing tanned and toned abs. His almond-shaped amber eyes were rimmed with metallic gold liner, smoky brown shadow, and what appeared to be violet mascara, and Fjord even noticed when he smiled that there was a tiny diamond glued to one of his teeth.

The older one had drowsy eggshell-blue eyes framed by enormous circular glasses, which were currently staring dreamily out the window over Beau’s shoulder. He was extremely tall, definitely over six and a half feet, and dressed entirely in loose linen. One side of his head was shaved and other side was dyed rosy pink and cascaded in a wavy mop over one shoulder.

“So you two are… brothers?” Beau asked, somewhat skeptically.

“Half-brothers, technically,” the younger one replied in a jovial Irish accent. “We both grew up in Dublin, although his mum moved to NorCal after Da’s first divorce and mine moved to LA after the second. When we both ended up in San Fran, we decided, why not live together, brothers and all, you know?”

“All right, so… Caduceus and…”

“Molly,” the younger one supplied.

“Caduceus and Molly, what are you doing now to support yourselves, I mean like, how can we guarantee that you’ll pay rent?” Beau asked.

Fjord cleared his throat in a way that kind of sounded like “Be more polite”. Beau subtly kicked his ankle under the coffee table.

“Well, Clay here works at a local mortuary -”

“That’s grim,” Beau said before she could stop herself.

Caduceus shrugged. “Circle of life, my friend,” he intoned blithely.

Molly cleared his throat. “And I’m in school studying forensic pathology, but you needn’t worry about my rent, because I have a sizeable trust fund from my, ah, mother.”

Fjord and Beau glanced at each other. He was definitely lying about some part of that sentence, but he had already made a sizeable security deposit on the room, so they both figured if he could pay his rent, it wasn’t their concern where his money actually came from.

Fjord grinned. “When can y’all move in?”


	3. Chapter 3

Caleb and Nott had chosen to live on the fourth-floor bedroom because its rent was the cheapest; it was, after all, essentially just the attic. The ceiling was vaulted and the room was oddly shaped, since it wrapped around the widow’s watch, which was accessible via a staircase from the master bedroom or via a loose windowpane in the attic, as Nott discovered. The attic was very dusty with lots of exposed rafters that creaked ominously when the wind blew, but Nott liked this feature because it provided a lot of places to store her shoplifted merchandise. The attic had come “pre-furnished” with a lot of odd vintage furniture belonging to the house’s original owner that wasn’t nice enough to go anywhere else in the house. Caleb had laid the mattress from their old apartment directly on the dusty floorboards, and Nott found a strange-looking purple divan that she decided to use as her bed on the other end of the room.

At the moment, they were sitting on a reed mat which they continually moved throughout the day so that it coincided with a square of sunlight from the west-facing window, eating Chinese takeout from the same styrofoam container.

“So, I found work at the school library,” Caleb said as he munched on a piece of orange chicken.

“Oh, good, that’ll be even more money for our bank account, then, what with my, ah, side business,” Nott replied happily. After she had started making a considerable amount of money selling weed, they had opened a joint bank account to help pay for rent and groceries. They did still get a monthly stipend from Caleb’s father, but that was now mostly going towards his student loans. Caleb didn’t love that Nott was making most of her money illegally, but he figured any funding that helped her eat and live comfortably was going towards a good cause. In their previous apartment, she’d procured most of her “wares” from dealers and then sold them at an inflated price to teenagers and college students who didn’t know any better, but their new home had access to a garden, and she was in the process of growing her own marijuana plants in a hidden corner behind an azalea hedge. Oddly enough, the research she was putting into raising the plants and preparing to turn them into ready-to-use drugs was causing her grades in chemistry and biology to improve somewhat accidentally, and he couldn’t complain about that. As long as she wasn’t literally getting high on her own supply, well… Caleb figured it was important to let young people have their autonomy.

“Ja, certainly,” he said. “And you know, if you want to see me after school, all you have to do is go to the library at my university. After you finish procuring a copy of my student ID you should have no trouble getting into the building.”

Nott beamed at him. Paying someone online to copy his ID card was another not-very-legal thing that would ultimately benefit Nott, and so Caleb couldn’t really justify having a problem with it. They were siblings, after all. They had each other’s backs. For the last eight years, they’d lived as a duo, doing whatever it took to protect each other and themselves, working in tandem to promote their collective interests, orbiting each other like binary stars that didn’t belong to any larger galaxy. Nott’s mother had no living family members that took any notice of them, and they did have Caleb’s father sending them money, but ever since he’d remarried and gotten a job in Munich, he’d stopped having a meaningful presence in their lives that wasn’t financial. But the good thing about having each other was that they didn’t need anyone else. Caleb took care of Nott, and Nott took care of Caleb, and Caleb also helped Nott take care of herself, which at times meant putting aside any concern about morals or the law because ultimately, the welfare of their tiny family was more important than anything else.

Caleb wrapped an arm around his sister, holding her close as the shadows in the attic grew long and the quickly fading sunlight from the single window washed them both in red-gold.


	4. Chapter 4

Beau’s room back in Albuquerque hadn’t been decorated at all; she’d just had a bed with plain white linens, blank walls, an empty desk. Her room here in San Francisco didn’t look much different, to be honest. It was a little bigger. The floors were hardwood. There was more sunlight. On a whim while picking up groceries after work the other day, she’d bought some plastic glow-in-the-dark stars she’d found in the bargain bin and pasted them up on the ceiling above her bed. They were really only easy to see at night and even then they didn’t glow very brightly, but during the day she could kind of make them out if she laid on her back and squinted at the whiteness above.

She wasn’t sure if she liked the emptiness anymore. It was nice to have clean walls because they were a sort of canvas for the various shapes and colors formed by the light from the windows throughout the day - bright in the morning, soft in the evening, amber in the night, always shifting rectangles. But on the other hand, maybe she needed it to be more different from her old room. With all this space, it was too easy to imagine Tori in here with her, and she needed more reasons to stop imagining that.

The stars were a start. They were hard to see, but there they were. She had some old kung fu trophies in storage that she could dust off and set around the room, maybe. There wasn’t really anywhere to put them, but maybe she could put in some shelves. That sounded like a project. Maybe Fjord had a colorful blanket or something that he’d let her borrow. Then again, he hadn’t come to the house with much, either. They were both just a couple of wayward lost souls, it seemed. Prodigal children brought back to the family home with nothing to show for the journey.

But she could make a home here. She could start over.

She felt the urge to take out her phone and look at her old photos of Tori again. But this time she went through and deleted them. Without them, her camera roll was almost empty. On a whim, she took a photo of the room. Maybe it could be a “before” image, and she’d take another one once she filled it up with new things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter lengths are kind of all over the place sorry lol! <3


	5. Chapter 5

As Molly sat in the Sex & Sexuality section of the university library (it was the section with the cushiest chairs), poring over another class textbook on skull configuration without actually absorbing any of it, he thought absently about his new housing situation. The basement room that he and his half-brother shared was really very nice; because of the way the hilltop was shaped, Clay actually had a large window on his side where he could grow an exorbitant number of potted plants. Molly’s side of the room was a bit darker, but he made up for it with lots of fairy lights and glimmering decorations and his enormous, glamourous, classic-Hollywood-style vanity. He had found it at an estate sale for some aging starlet on Sunset Boulevard, and it was probably one of his most prized possessions.

He knew that other people lived in the house, but other than the two landlords, he had never actually met any of them. He didn’t even know how many roommates he had, let alone what their names were. The basement had a back door that he and Clay generally used to get in and out rather than go upstairs to use the front entrance. They had some food and supplies that they kept in the communal kitchen, but Clay worked nights and thus kept, presumably, very different hours from pretty much every other normal person, and Molly ate out most of the time so he wasn’t in the kitchen or dining room much anyway.

He liked the two landlords, at least. One of them was a tall, sexy surf instructor with green hair and green eyes, whom Molly might have paid more attention to if he didn’t give off unfortunate heterosexual dudebro vibes. And also if he wasn’t paying him rent; that was probably, like, illegal in some states. The other one was just extremely, extremely lesbian. And a bit rude. But he could forgive her, because she was just, so lesbian.

Molly’s train of thought derailed completely when he happened to glance over at the guy working at the checkout desk. Now that was a boy. His wavy ginger hair fell to about his shoulders, and his scruffy ginger facial hair and dorky thick-framed glasses were heart-meltingly endearing. Even though the day was relatively sunny, he was wearing a tousled sweater-and-shirt combo that made him look very professorly. Like the sort of hot, adorable professor that Molly could see himself falling in love with at office hours. Since the library wasn’t particularly busy at this time of day, he appeared to be absorbed in a book, which, Molly realized after a strained gaze, looked like a trashy romance novel. Adorable.

Without even really thinking about it, he swept up the book he was reading, grabbed a couple more random ones off a shelf nearby, and made a beeline for the checkout desk.

“Hellooooo,” he purred, leaning on both arms as he slammed his stack of mostly unknown books in front of Sexy Ginger Nerd.

Sexy Ginger Nerd nearly jumped out of his skin, causing his glasses to almost fall off his chiseled face. Flustered, he hurriedly shoved them back up his nose with one hand while attempting to stow his smut novel in a drawer. Molly grinned wider.

“Ah, I am sorry, Herr, I did not see you,” he said, in a soft German accent. Adorable. “How can I help you today?”

“Oh, just… checking out the merchandise,” Molly said sweetly, waiting a second or two before gesturing at his stack of books. SGN gave him an odd look, and began scanning the books.

His face brightened when he saw the cover of the skull book. “Oh, Dr. Ronald Yee!” he exclaimed. “He is one of my favorite forensic scientists. Have you read his book on blood splatter?” he asked Molly eagerly.

Molly made snap decision to bluff his ass off. “Yes, I have! It was, ah, amazing! I am such a fan of his work.”

“Was it not? I am studying Linguistics myself, but, ah, I still find forensic science very, ah, interesting…” he trailed off as he looked at the cover of one of the other books. Which, Molly realized, to his abject horror, was entitled Bad in Bed: A Helpful Guide for the Sexually Inept.

SGN cleared his throat awkwardly, his cheeks coloring. “...Ja, well, anyway,” he said as he scanned the other three books and awkwardly handed the stack over to Molly. “These are both due in a month, please, ah… enjoy them.”

Molly, too deeply mortified to even think of anything to say, hurriedly shoved the books in his bag and practically ran out of the library, planning not to return for at least five hundred years.


	6. Chapter 6

Yasha knew it was part of her job to go with Jester to all of her classes, but it was probably her least favorite part of her job, for a number of reasons. One of them was the way she so clearly stood out from all the other students. Jester’s parents had made an arrangement with the school so that Yasha was allowed to attend alongside Jester under the guise of being an older access student. She didn’t even really seem like an access student, though. Most of the access students were older, ordinary adults who simply wanted to finish their college degrees or maybe just learn a new skill. They were friendly enough, sat in the back, and didn’t draw the eye.

Yasha, on the other hand, was over six feet tall and always wore black slacks and a black button-down that barely hid the bulky shape of her bulletproof vest. She had a mane of long black hair that she could only ever really tame into a simple half-up-half-down hairstyle that at least kept it out of her face, and the ends were permanently bleached from her years on the Russian women’s national swim team. Jester sometimes suggested she just cut her hair short because the ends were so damaged, but Yasha kept them for sentimental value. (She missed the girls on the team. Hopefully they were doing well, wherever they were; she hadn’t kept in touch with them because she hadn’t owned a cell phone before Jester’s parents had issued her one, insisting that she couldn’t be a proper bodyguard without it.) She also had about five piercings in each ear, because several months ago Jester had realized that the two of them had the same birthday, and she had made the loudest, most high-pitched noise that Yasha had ever heard in her life, and demanded that the two of them go “clubbing” and then get tattoos and piercings together. Yasha didn’t drink on the job, but Jester had gotten rather tipsy at the nightclub and forked over enough cash at the piercer’s to have both of their bodies laden with bling several times over. Luckily, she had been a little more conservative in her tattoo choice: a little water lily on both their left wrists, because their zodiac signs were both cancer. Yasha thought it was rather pretty; she liked to just look at it sometimes.

All of this to say that Yasha didn’t exactly blend in with the other students in Jester’s classes. She had a neutral facial expression that many people described as “brooding” and which Jester described as “bitchy”. It didn’t help that she had been born with a form of partial albinism that had given her colorless skin and a lack of pigment in her left eye that made it appear sort of purple-ish. She often tried to distract from her odd-looking eyes with lots of smoky makeup, but it never seemed to do much.

Yasha would have preferred to sit in the back with the access students. At least they seemed focused on school and not on their peers. But Jester insisted on always sitting in the front row and waving her hand in the air every thirty seconds and interjecting loudly whenever the professor said something she found interesting. Jester was also eye-catching, but intentionally so; she had vibrant blue hair always topped with space buns, doused herself in sparkly, candy-scented body spray every single day, and dressed in quirky colorful outfits that were the sort of thing rich kids wore when they wanted to look like they only shopped at thrift stores. Between the two of them, they attracted a lot of stares.

“Jester,” Yasha whispered to her one day at the beginning of illustration class. “Do you ever think about sitting in the back of the class?”

“No,” Jester said brightly. “Why?”

Yasha chewed her lip, too embarrassed to say that she felt uncomfortable being seen by other people.

Jester’s large, dark eyes gazed thoughtfully at her. Her natural eye color was coffee brown, but she loved wearing vividly colored contact lenses, usually in blue; today’s were a nice teal hue. ‘Yasha, do you get bored in my classes?” she asked, lowering her voice gently.

Yasha didn’t really get “bored” of things very much, but it seemed like as good a reason as any to sit in the back. “Yes,” she affirmed.

Jester thought for a moment, and then grinned conspiratorially. “Oh! I just thought of the best idea! Yasha, why don’t you do art along with me? Do you ever do art?”

Yasha struggled to keep her facial expression neutral. She hadn’t expected this response. “No, I don’t think so,” she answered truthfully. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d drawn anything, but maybe she had when she was a little girl. That seemed like the kind of thing little girls did at daycare.

“Well, now’s as good a time to start as any! Here,” Jester tore out a page from her sketchbook and selected a pen from her pen set. “Draw whatever you want! And show me at the end of class!”

Yasha didn’t know the first thing about drawing, but Jester looked so excited that she didn’t have the heart to show her ambivalence about the idea. She took the pen and paper.

Oddly enough, Jester’s suggestion sort of worked. Having a drawing to work on throughout class at least distracted her from the presence of the other students.

Yasha didn’t really know much about drawing, or even what people usually drew, so in her head she envisioned a beautiful lady that she had seen at the metro station that morning, getting on the train as she and Jester were getting off. Working off of the picture in her mind’s eye, she did her best to trace the outline of the woman’s body onto the paper, and then draw the shapes of her clothes and hair. Once she finished the drawing, she was rather proud of how similar it looked to the image in her head, and she even asked Jester if she could borrow her colored pencils to color it. Jester obliged, looking absolutely delighted.

Once Yasha had finished coloring in the lady’s gray hoodie, brown skin, and striking blue eyes, she liked it so much that she used the pink colored pencil to draw little flowers floating around her. Pink was such a nice color, she thought. Maybe she should ask Jester to buy some more pink decorations for their room. She based the flowers on some very pretty ones she’d seen growing in the front yard of their new home. Yasha loved their new home; she’d never lived in a house that beautiful before. It was also lovely to have people around. Yasha hadn’t met any of them because Jester’s parents had negotiated the lease over the phone and Yasha was too shy to venture into the communal areas much, but she liked the idea that there were people around, and she could go talk to them if she really wanted to.

At the end of the class, Yasha was almost too shy to show Jester her drawing and tried to just stow it in her bag, but Jester seemed so excited to see it that Yasha relented. It was a very simplistic drawing, not indicative of much technical skill, and nowhere near as elaborate and complex as the art Jester routinely did for her classes. Nevertheless, Jester reacted like it was the most beautiful masterpiece she’d ever laid eyes on. She screamed out loud and leapt into Yasha’s arms; Jester screamed a lot and also hugged people a lot, both in all kinds of different circumstances. “Oh, Yasha, I love it so much!” she exclaimed. “Let’s hang it on our wall when we get home!” Yasha felt her face grow warm, both at the idea of her own drawing hanging on the wall, and of the fact that they had a home. Yasha hadn’t really thought of any place as home for a long time. She also couldn’t remember the last time she’d drawn anything. What had her life become?

As they rode the metro back to their neighborhood, Jester took out the drawing again, admiring it and smiling adoringly at Yasha. Suddenly her head tilted as if something had just occurred to her, rhinestone-studded heart-shaped hoop earrings jingling. “Yasha, is this a picture of Beau?” she asked.

Yasha rifled through her mental catalogue of the names of people she’d met. She came up with nothing. “Sorry, who?” Yasha asked, furrowing her brow.

“Beau, our landlord! You’ve never met her?”

Yasha shook her head in confusion. “Landlord?”

“You really don’t know who our landlords are?” Jester tossed her head back in a loud laugh which made several other metro passengers shoot the two of them annoyed glances. “Aren’t bodyguards supposed to, like, know things like that?”

Yasha shrugged. “I think your parents hired me for the muscle, mainly.” She flexed a bicep to demonstrate.

Jester patted her bicep appreciatively. “Well, we have two landlords, and one of them is named Beau, and she’s like, super cool, and she looks just like this,” she said, gesturing at the drawing. “I met her when I went to ask her some questions about how the oven works, and then I talked to her a bunch more times because I had a bunch more questions about, like, how to turn the shower on, and stuff like that. I would have asked you but I think you were busy doing your workout at all those times. You know what, now that I put it like that, it actually makes a lot of sense that you never met her, but you should totally go talk to her! It’s so crazy that you drew this picture, it looks just like her!”

“Really?” Yasha replied. She thought again of the lady from the metro station. Could that have been their landlord?

“It does, it looks just like her! I want to show you a picture of her but she hasn’t accepted my follow request on Instagram yet,” Jester pouted. “But you should go visit her room and show her this picture! I bet she’ll agree that it looks just like her! And she will love it, too!”

“I’m not going to go visit her room, that seems invasive,” Yasha said. “And besides, don’t you think that’s an odd way to meet someone?”

“Aww, Yashaaa, are you embarrassed?” Jester crowed, leaning into Yasha’s side. Yasha tried not to look too sheepish.

“Yashaaaaaaa, don’t be embarrassed! I think it’s sweet! If I were her I would be super flattered and stuff. But I promise I won’t show her if you want to keep it a secret. We can just hang it on our wall in our bedroom! And she will never see it unless she comes into our room, and I hope she doesn’t do that, because that would be, like, kind of creepy, you know.”

Yasha nodded, ducking her head to hide her smile over the fact that Jester thought her very own drawing was pretty enough to go on the wall of their home. Home.


	7. Chapter 7

Fjord hadn’t talked to Caduceus Clay much since they’d finished arranging the lease. But his presence was hard to miss. Even though he worked nights at the mortuary and slept for most of the day, the garden had slowly filled up with his plants until it was a veritable jungle of flowers, herbs, blooming bushes, and tangling vines. The heady smell of incense wafted up from the basement every morning and evening when he did his daily Wiccan rituals. And the pantry was simply overflowing with his tea. Some of it was artisanal tea he’d probably bought from farmer’s markets and hippie boutiques and obscure online stores, but a considerable portion of it looked homemade, at least if the unmarked plastic containers were anything to go by. There was so much tea that it didn’t all fit on the shelves and he had started stacking it on the floor, and even the boxes that were on the shelves were liable to fall off as soon as you touched them because they were positioned so precariously.

None of it was labeled with his name, as if he didn’t really care if anyone else drank it without his permission. Fjord could tell it belonged to Caduceus because the other tenants’ belongings were so obviously distinct. The two attic-dwellers whose names Fjord could never remember always kept their food up in their room (maybe his inability to remember their names had some connection with their disinclination to engage with anyone else in the house). Caduceus’ brother Molly had a cardboard box filled with bottles of exotic wine and tins of bizarrely flavored chocolates (neither of which were things suitable for daily meals, but Fjord chose not to think about it too hard). Yasha, their tallest and quietest tenant, kept a few staples like rye bread and canned stew in a corner in the back of the pantry, and her roommate Jester continually replenished her own considerable stash of cookies, cupcakes, cinnamon rolls, and various other pastries, some of which she clearly bought in bulk and others of which seemed to be delicacies from fancy bakeries downtown. These were all labeled “JESTERS DONT TOUCH” in aggressive purple sharpie. Fjord bent the “no touch” rule slightly when he routinely searched through her treats to make sure none of them were rotting. They never were, but having lived in a frat house in his younger years, he liked to avoid bad smells if he could.

He was doing this one early morning before work when he startled by the sound of a voice behind him. “Excuse me,” someone said mildly.

Fjord whipped around in horror, desperately hoping it wasn’t Jester. It probably wasn’t; he didn’t know her very well, but nothing about her personality had ever struck him as “mild”.

Caduceus smiled at him. His usually bare feet were encased in house slippers, and he was wrapped in a cozy-looking flannel coat. His long pink tresses were pulled back in a haphazard knot. He reminded Fjord a bit of his grandmother.

“I was just going to have some tea before going to bed,” Caduceus said. “Would you like to join me?”

Fjord was too surprised to do anything but nod. He was rather happy; none of the other tenants had as of yet made any attempts at friendship with him, and he wasn’t the sort of person who needed friends, per se, but he definitely wouldn’t say no to an offer of one.

Caduceus beamed. He had a very nice smile. “That’s great,” he said, sounding very sincere about it. “How about some chamomile? It’s good for the nerves, and you seem a little strung out, my friend.”

Fjord felt a brief rush of annoyance at the remark, but immediately tamped it down. Most of the time, people are only trying to help you, not make you feel bad, he reminded himself. Mentally, he smoothed down his shirt and straightened himself up. Out loud, he said, “I would love to.”

Caduceus made them both cups of tea, chattering idly about how he’d grown this chamomile plant himself at his mother’s home in northern California and brought the leaves down here because they’d turned out so well. So Fjord had been right about the homemade tea, then. And then Fjord was asking him about how he had gotten started making tea, and then Caduceus was telling him about how his mother and his aunts and all his cousins all did things like that in their town, and how their family was famous for their homemade herbal goods - soaps, oils, incenses, all of that. And then Fjord was asking him why he’d decided to come to San Francisco, because he was genuinely curious. Was this how conversation was supposed to feel? Was it always this easy? And then Caduceus was telling him about how he really wanted to gain experience working at different mortuaries so he and his cousins could found their own eco-friendly funeral home and cemetery back in their hometown, and he also just wanted to experience the wider world. And before Fjord knew it, he was talking about how he, too, wanted to experience the wider world, because he’d grown up in central Texas and gone to school in Houston and moved to the Gulf coast after he’d dropped out of school and, well, kind of just burned out on life.

“And so then I just felt like I needed to be near the ocean, I have no idea why,” Fjord said, also having no idea why he was telling Caduceus this, because he’d never even told Beau. He stared into his cup of tea. Maybe it had truth serum in it. “And for a few months I just… did nothing, really,” he continued. “But after a while I really desperately needed money for rent. And so I picked up a job as a lifeguard at the beach. Because I used to swim at the local pool back home, you know. And while I was there, my coworkers taught me how to surf. And I really loved it. I loved the feeling of freedom. So eventually I got good enough at it that I could become an instructor and get paid a higher salary. And it was really good for a while. But I needed to get out of there, I think. And then, out of nowhere, I get this house. It was, uh… what’s that word… precipitous?”

“Serendipitous, I think?” Caduceus murmured, sipping his tea.

“Yes, that. So here I am,” Fjord finished. He felt slightly embarrassed after revealing so much of his life story to someone he didn’t know very well. He went to take another gulp of tea, only to realize his cup was empty.

Caduceus smiled softly at him. “Well, I’m very glad you are here,” he said. “And I’m glad the fates brought us two friends together.”

Fjord stared down at the grain of the table, feeling his face grow warm. “Me too,” he muttered.

Caduceus let out a contented sigh. “Well, I should really be going to bed.”

Fjord looked up at him in horror. “Oh my god, I completely forgot you work nights… I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time!”

Caduceus waved a hand, using the other to lightly pat Fjord’s bicep. “Nonsense! It’s always a pleasure having tea with friends. I’ve been meaning to get to know my housemates better, too. We are all living together, after all,” he said. “And you know, you’re welcome to have tea with me anytime I’m home. You and your sister both.”

“My, uh… what?”

“Oh, is she not your sister? The other landlord?”

“I think technically, she’s my… second cousin?”

“Sister in spirit, then,” Caduceus concluded matter-of-factly. Before Fjord could ask him what that meant, he stood up, going over to the sink to wash out their two mugs before heading over to the stairs that led to the basement. “I might see you sooner than you think,” he said by way of farewell, before disappearing into the darkness below.

What an odd, wonderful man.


	8. Chapter 8

iMessage  
7:42 am

Fjord: Beau did u realise there is Weed plants growing in back yard. -Fjord

11:06 am  
Beau: NO WTF???  
Beau: IM GONNA TAKE SOME  
Beau: Wait  
Beau: What do weed plants look like?????

12:30 pm  
Fjord: Shouldnt we like tell someone ? -Fjord

12:33 pm  
Beau: NO DUDE  
Beau: Dont be a fuckin narc goododddoddddd  
Beau: I bet it was that hippie dude who lives in the basement  
Beau: Seems like the type lol

Fjord: If it was Coduses thats fine i trust him. -Fjord

Beau: Do u think he would care if i took some

Fjord: Probly not , He is like super nice and kind. -Fjord

Beau: Awwwwww  
Beau: I should talk to him more

Fjord: Feel like thats curtesy if your gonna steal from him. -Fjord

Beau: HEY MAYBE I AM JUST A NICE PERSON WHO WANTS TO MAKE FRIENDS

Fjord: O.K. -Fjord

Beau: [middle finger emoji]


	9. Chapter 9

Molly tried not to think about the Sexy Ginger Nerd from the library, but it was so hard not to think about him, and about how poorly that entire interaction had gone. He had hidden the Bad Sex book under his bed, too humiliated to return it to the libary. But he knew he had to do it eventually, or else he would get an overdue fine, and then the Sexy Ginger Nerd would send him a stern email about it and he would really have to come back to the library. Or, more likely, one of the many other school library employees would send him a stern email. That was the rational thing to think. But it was so hard to be rational when it came to Sexy Ginger Nerd.

He had avoided the library like the plague for the last week, opting to study in his bedroom instead. But it was starting to make him a little crazy. For one thing, his half-brother was asleep on the other side of the room, so he had to be extremely quiet at all times. For another thing, his room was full of amazing and shiny trinkets and tchotchkes that he couldn’t help but look at and play with instead of, you know, doing his reading. And for a third thing, he needed to be constantly changing positions and scenery in order to remain focused, and the library worked well for that because it was large and had lots of different sections and aisles and seating areas, but in his room he could really only sit on his bed or on the floor (he didn’t have a desk because the vanity took up too much space, and he couldn’t do his homework at the vanity because there was jewelry all over it and he also maybe got a little distracted by his reflection sometimes).

This was the reason he decided to try studying in the dining room for once. It shouldn’t be so bad; he had a collection of fancy chocolates to snack on that had been sent to him by fans before he left LA and changed his name. He had once done an interview for a gossip magazine in which he had mentioned that he loved oddly flavored sweets, and after that he had always come home from every red carpet event with several boxes of them.

He stopped by the pantry and selected a tin of truffles that were supposed to taste like some kind of berry that grew in Finland, and made himself a cup of one of Caduceus’ teas. It was one of the herbs that were supposed to promote love; he certainly needed that after striking out so badly last week.

The dining room was quiet and peaceful in the balmy evening light. The two landlords were both still at work, at least according to the schedules they’d taped to the refrigerator, and it seemed like either no one else was home, or everyone was being very introverted. Either one was conducive to studying. Molly tried every chair until he found the most comfortable one, and then settled in, spreading out his notebook and a text about crime scene hair analysis.

Molly wasn’t sure how much time passed, but he managed to get a considerable amount of reading done before he was distracted by the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen. He checked the time on his phone; the landlords were both definitely still at work. Could this be one of the mysterious housemates?  
Surreptitiously, Molly peeked over his shoulder. Yes, someone was definitely in there, humming slightly off-key and making a sandwich. The dusky light shone pleasantly on their wavy, overgrown hairstyle, turning it a beautiful shade of auburn. Wait a second…

The figure turned around at the sound of a third person coming downstairs, and it only took a split second for Molly to realize that, yes, that was indeed Sexy Ginger Nerd! The blue eyes, the glasses, the stubbled jawline… his face was unmistakable. Desperately, Molly hunkered down, hoping beyond hope that SGN hadn’t noticed he was there. He couldn’t believe it! This whole time, he’d been trying so hard to avoid that guy, and it turned out they lived together? This was what he deserved for not bothering to meet his housemates, he supposed.

“Hi, Caleb,” said a voice, scratchy and teenage-sounding.

Caleb. Molly savored the name in his mind. So what, the guy was still cute.

“Guten Abend, Spatz,” Caleb replied. His voice was so lovely. “How was school today?”

“Same as usual. A lot of preps stared at me, so I put up my middle finger at them.”

Caleb tutted. “That is rather rude, don’t you think?” Molly wondered if he had even heard of My Immortal.

The other person sighed; clearly the same thought was going through their head. “I was just joking. I was nice to everyone, I swear. I’m a really nice person, you know. How about your day?”

“Ja, it was all right, I just went to school, went to work, came home.”

“Anything interesting happen at work? Did that weird person come back?” Molly hoped he wasn’t the weird person, but he had a feeling he might be.

“No and no. I just got some studying done, really, it was a perfectly normal day.”

“Oh, hey! Is that a sandwich for me, perhaps?”

“Why, yes it is, sister dearest -”

And then they were practically in the dining room, and they could definitely see Molly now.

The teenager cleared her throat loudly and imperiously. “Hello, sir or madam. Do you mind if we partake of sitting in here of dinner?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “See, I’m being polite, just like you taught me!” This part was directed at Caleb, but Molly couldn’t help but smile.

Caleb hushed her. He turned to Molly and opened his mouth to speak, but then tilted his head in confusion. “Oh, hello there. I think we have met,” he said.

Molly was frozen. He was pretty sure he was still smiling awkwardly, and he wanted to stop, but he couldn’t get his face to move.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, the teenager immediately interjected. “Hey, has anyone ever told you you look like that guy from Tusk Love? You know, the guy who played like the dude that the main girl’s parents wanted her to marry? I swear to God you look exactly like him.”

Molly hoped his smile didn’t look too icy. “I’ve never seen Tusk Love,” he said, literally lying through his teeth.

“What’s that actor’s name? Caleb, do you remember? Isn’t he the one who, like, quit his whole career a couple years ago or something?”

“Spatz, please do not be rude, I have no idea what you are going on about and I’m sure our friend here does not, either. My name is Caleb, and this is my sister Nott,” he said.

“Hi there, I’m Nott. Sorry for being a little shit,” she said sheepishly.

“Nott, how many times do I have to tell you not to curse in front of strangers,” Caleb said, sounding exasperated.

“Oh, it’s quite all right,” Molly replied smoothly, somehow remembering how to speak. “My name’s Mollymauk Tealeaf. Molly to my friends. And I assume we must be friends now, you know, living together and all.” And he flashed them his best million-watt movie-star smile, the one that had gotten him at least two nominations for Sexiest Man Alive.

“Ja, what a coincidence,” said Caleb as he and Nott sat down with their sandwiches. “I trust you are learning many useful things from your library books?”

Molly’s jaw didn’t actually, physically drop, but it was a near thing. He side-eyed Caleb, who was… was that a smirk? The moment was broken by Nott asking if Caleb wanted to hear a story about what had happened to her in gym class today, but Molly couldn’t get over the nerve of that man. He couldn’t decide if he was furious at him or falling in love with him. It was probably the second thing, but he decided to pretend it was the first thing, because it was kind of embarrassing to fall in love with someone you’d known for a week and had one and a half conversations with, and Molly was in deep denial about how easily he embarrassed himself.


	10. Chapter 10

Later that night, Nott and Caleb were snuggled up on Caleb’s mattress, watching an old Doctor Who episode on their shared laptop like they usually did before bed. They were both freshly showered; there was no bathroom in the attic, so they shared one with Fjord, who lived on the floor below them. Caleb wondered how long they could get away with borrowing his soap and shampoo before he noticed how quickly it was depleting. Eventually they would probably need to just suck it up and buy their own.

As the episode ended, Nott let out a screech which indicated she’d just realized something important. Caleb jumped. “What is it, Spatz?” he asked.

“I just remembered the name of that actor! The one who looks like Marley!”

“I think it was… Molly?”

“Whatever… hang on a sec…” She typed a long name that began with L into the Google search bar. The search returned with a wealth of images of a young handsome actor with tan skin, amber eyes, and flowing black curls that made him look a bit like a pirate. The hair was much longer and a very different color, but sure enough, the face did bear a striking resemblance to that of their newly discovered housemate.

“You’re right, he does look just like him,” Caleb said thoughtfully.

“Yeah, isn’t that weird? Ooh, look at these,” she said, gesturing at some pictures from a shirtless photo shoot where the actor appeared to have been splashed with water, or maybe baby oil. “Do you think Millie looks like that, too?”

“Molly. And I feel like maybe we shouldn’t be looking at these…”

“Why not? It’s not him.”

“Yes, but the face looks exactly like his face… You have to admit it’s a little weird.”

Nott shrugged. “I guess so.” Then a moment later she gasped. “Oh my god, what if it is him?”

Caleb frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean like, this actor’s whole thing was that he, like, disappeared a while back. Like a year or two ago I think. Like, not literally, like he didn’t actually go missing,” she added hurriedly, seeing Caleb’s expression of mild alarm. “He just stopped being in any movies or doing any interviews, and all of his social media accounts have been inactive for ages, and he had this mansion in Hollywood but people think he doesn’t live there anymore because it always looks kind of empty and spooky. No one knows where he moved to, though. But what if he moved here? What if he’s, like, living undercover?”

Caleb thought about it. It did sound a little crazy, but he supposed it was technically plausible. The resemblance was uncanny. He looked at the search page again, where dozens of pairs of amber eyes stared back at him. Definitely uncanny.

“If it is him, we should probably stay mum about it,” he said.

“Why? I want to confront him about it immediately!”

“Well, if he’s trying to lay low for some reason, I feel it would be impolite to expose him. Maybe he wants to start over with a clean slate. I can certainly understand that, can’t you?”

Nott shrugged. “I guess so,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s super exciting, though? To be living with a real movie star?”

Caleb still wasn’t entirely convinced that they were, but on the likely chance that Molly was just an ordinary person who’d never played the romantic lead in any summer blockbuster, he figured it wouldn’t be socially acceptable for Nott to accuse him of being a celebrity, apropo of nothing. His first introduction to Molly had already been pretty strange, but he didn’t want to further weirden the relationship. Weirden? Was that a word?

He took the laptop out of Nott’s hands. “Come now, you should get to bed, you have school tomorrow.”

She groaned. “Ugh, can’t I be late for once? I hate first period, we never do anything useful in that class anyway.”

“I believe you, but we still don’t have that paperwork that says I’m your legal guardian, and so I can’t call in for you. I don’t want you to get detention again, last time I had to leave class early so I could pick you up.”

“I can just take myself home, you know that! And if you’ll let me buy that knife I want, I’ll be even safer.”

“Maybe when I get my paycheck. Now get off my bed! It’s almost eleven.”

Still grumbling, Nott ruffled his hair and scampered off to her side of the attic. Caleb looked at the laptop, which was still open to the image search page for the actor named Lucien. He clicked on a particularly nice photo of Lucien where the actor was leaning ruggedly against a sun-washed rock, smoldering at the camera and wearing a loose floral shirt that was practically falling off of him. Caleb looked at it for longer than he would ever admit to Nott, and then eventually clicked the download button. It was a really nice picture. It’s not even him, he thought to himself. The chance is so small. And we’re probably not even going to be friends with him anyway, so it’s totally fine.


	11. Chapter 11

It had been about a month since they’d moved in, and Jester still didn’t know how to use any of the appliances in the house. Usually whenever she needed something, she just asked Yasha to do it; despite what Jester’s parents seemed to think, Jester was never really in any actual danger of being kidnapped or murdered, and so Yasha’s job as a bodyguard largely entailed helping Jester organize her closet and making runs to Starbucks and providing moral support when she was nervous about a Tinder date. The two of them went to classes together, and when Jester went out to see people, Yasha hung around and sat at a different table with a baseball cap pulled low over her face. When they were at home, Yasha spent her time reading books to improve her English (she was working her way through Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets at the moment) or went into the bathroom to work out. Jester’s parents were paying extra so that she and Yasha could live in the master bedroom, and their en-suite bathroom was actually very spacious, with built-in “his and hers” closets. The curtain rung in the shower was very old and very solid and actually made a great chin-up bar. Yasha had laid out a cheap yoga mat on the tiled floor and liked to just spend time in there, lifting weights and doing calisthenics and listening to some kind of music on her ancient MP3 (Jester desperately wanted to know what kind of music Yasha liked, but she was so cagey about it).

Yasha was willing to interrupt her workout to help Jester with things, but Jester could tell she preferred to be left alone, so she had gotten into the habit of going to ask Beau to help her with things instead. Beau usually put up a front of grumpiness about being asked to do a task, but Jester could tell that secretly she was sweet and liked being helpful. Beau lived on the ground floor, downstairs from Jester and Yasha. Considering her room was right next to the kitchen and pantry and dining and laundry areas, Jester wondered how she was so adept at avoiding direct interaction with her tenants. If Jester owned this house, she would probably make everyone eat dinner together every night, but that didn’t really seem like Beau’s sort of thing.

Jester wandered through the deserted kitchen and over to Beau’s door. “Beaauuu,” she called out in a singsong voice, knocking repeatedly in a fast-paced rhythm. From the other side, she heard cursing and the sound of something knocking over. “Just a minute!” Beau yelled.

When Beau finally opened the door, she looked slightly disheveled. Locks of dark hair were falling out of her top knot, and her sleeveless hoodie bore a fresh stain of what looked like gorilla glue. “Hi, Jester, what’s up?” she asked nonchalantly, leaning on the doorframe so Jester couldn’t peer into the room.

Jester’s interest was immediately piqued. “Ooh, what are you doing in there?”

“Uh, nothing, just some, uh, renovation - hey, watch it - wait, why the fuck are you strong -”

She cut off her sentence as Jester jostled past her to get a look. It appeared that Beau was in the middle of assembling some kind of Ikea furniture.

“Ooh, Beau, what is that! Are you redecorating?” Jester exclaimed excitedly, kneeling down to look more closely.

Beau shrugged, clearly trying desperately to look like she didn’t care about any of this. “Uh, I guess. I mean, not really redecorating, more like just decorating.”

Jester nodded sagely, glancing around at the rather Spartan room. “Yeah, it does look pretty bad in here, huh?”

Beau scowled. “Hey, don’t be a dick about it.”

“I’m not being a dick, I’m just being honest. Oh, you know what? I could totally help you paint the walls! I’m really good at that! I could even paint some designs on too, you know, I used to do murals a lot! I think it would be super pretty to have some flowers on the wall over there, maybe even a willow tree-”

Beau looked alarmed. “Hey, hey, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t go overboard, I don’t want this place to look like Tinker Bell’s fuckin’ castle or anything. But yeah, if you wanna help paint the walls, that would be great,” she relented.

“I don’t think Tinker Bell even has a castle, Beau,” said Jester, prompting Beau to throw a paint-stained rag at her. “And of course I would love to help! Ooh, I can get Yasha to help, too! She is like, super strong, and good at, like, manual labor.”

“Is painting a room really manual labor?”

“Well, she can also help you put… whatever this is… together, since you clearly can’t do it on your own…” Jester gestured at the Ikea furniture. “She’s good at, like, working with her hands and stuff.”

Beau cleared her throat. “Uh, is Yasha the, like, really tall person who lives with you?”

Jester beamed. “Yes, that’s her! Have you met her?”

Beau looked slightly awkward, for some reason. “Well… not really. Not in person. I guess I’ve just seen her. Like, around. In the house. Like, I saw her in, like, the laundry room.”

Jester furrowed her brow. “You just… saw her? And didn’t go talk to her?”

Beau folded her arms, looking grumpy. “Yeah, I guess? Why, what’s so weird about that? Did she, uh, did she see me?”

“...No? She hasn’t mentioned it, anyway.”

“Oh,” Beau said, obviously struggling not to look disappointed.

Jester stared at her quizzically. “You’re being kind of weird right now, Beau,” she commented, because someone needed to say it.

Beau scowled again. “What - I’m not - what - you’re the one who’s - I’m not being weird! Shut up! Ugh! Why - what’s so funny?”

Jester doubled over giggling. “You’re just being so weird!”

Beau sighed dramatically and ran her hands through her hair, further messing up her top knot. “Ugh, just - what did you need help with? Why did you even come here? Sorry, that was rude, I didn’t mean it like that,” she added when Jester gazed at her with an exaggerated pout.

“I was just wondering how to use the microwave! I have some amazing ramen packets that I really want to eat.”

“We have a- ? Oh, right, Fjord bought one this weekend. Uh, yeah, so, I’m probably not the person to ask about that? I haven’t had a chance to even look at it since he brought it in here. Why don’t you go ask him? He should be off work by now, he’s probably out back doing yard work. He likes trimming the hedges, like every goddamn day. Fucking Edward Scissorhands.”

“Oh - okay!” Jester hadn’t had the chance to meet her other landlord yet, but she was always excited to meet a new person, especially if he was as nice as Beau. Well, maybe “nice” wasn’t exactly the right word for Beau.


	12. Chapter 12

Fjord was staring pensively at the row of modestly sized marijuana plants behind the azalea hedge, wondering what he should do about them, when his loudest and sparkliest tenant approached him. Well, maybe, second-sparkliest; Caduceus’ brother was pretty sparkly. But this one was definitely the loudest, if the near-constant bubblegum pop music echoing from the floor below him was anything to go by. He was pretty certain she left her boombox on when she wasn’t even home, but he was still working up the nerve to accuse her of it.

“Yoo-hoo!” she called as she walked towards him across the lawn, only wobbling a little on the grass in her shimmering jelly wedges. He hadn’t met her in person yet, but Beau talked about her occasionally. She mostly talked about how Jester was extremely annoying, although he’d eventually realized that for Beau, that was a sign of affection. Nothing about what he’d heard had prepared for him for the fact that she was… well, really pretty. Her holographic latex dress flashed brilliant rainbows in the sunlight, and the two buns on top of her head sprouted ridiculously large blown-glass butterfly hair clips, and her earrings looked - and jingled - like miniature crystal chandeliers, but it all still wasn’t enough to draw his eyes away from her face, which was just beautiful, in a very unassuming and uncomplicated way that somehow made his heart slow down instead of beat faster.

He probably shouldn’t be thinking things like that about his tenant, though. “Ahoy there - Jester,” he said, taking a second to recall her name.

She caught up to where he was standing and took a moment to peer up at him. He had about a foot of height on her.

“Wow, um… you’re very tall!” she said, beaming and fluttering her eyelashes, which, he realized, were festooned with blue mascara that matched her hair color.

“I, uh, suppose I am,” he said a little awkwardly, not sure of how to respond. He cleared his throat, eager to return to a conversational realm that he could easily navigate. “Can I… help you with something?”

Her smile turned several watts brighter. “Oh, yes! Beau said that you could help me with the microwave?”

Now that, he could do. He set down his garden shears on the grass, giving the marijuana plants one last stern glance. Mark my words, I’ll figure out what to do about you, he thought. “Lead the way,” he said to Jester, resting a hand on her shoulder, which seemed to please her considerably. Up close, she smelled like something sweet, perhaps vanilla.

He followed Jester into the house while she rambled idly about the snacks she really wanted to try now that she had access to a microwave, and about how she totally would have asked her roommate to help her but Yasha was busy, and she asked Beau first but Beau told her to ask him, and Beau was also working on redecorating her room, wasn’t that great? Et cetera, et cetera. Fjord usually got bored when other people talked too much, but he rather enjoyed listening to Jester. She didn’t seem like she was trying to project any sort of persona or prove anything to him; she was just being herself, and herself happened to be someone who found everything about life very interesting and worthy of conversation. He couldn’t relate, exactly, but he admired that. It sounded like it made for an exciting existence.

As he showed her how to use the microwave, she continued to pepper in comments and remarks about how lovely the kitchen was or how nice it would be to cook frozen mac n’ cheese or how he must be so muscular from working in the yard all the time. “Actually, I guess it’s because I teach surfing lessons,” he responded noncommittally, not really paying attention because he was busy adjusting the timer settings on the microwave.

In his peripheral vision, he saw her jaw literally drop. “What, you teach surfing lessons? OMG Fjord, that is so cool and amazing!”

He shrugged. “I guess so. I really like it, anyway. It’s more fun than being a lifeguard.”

“OMG, you were a lifeguard, too? That is so super cool. I bet you were, like, the lifeguard that everybody had a crush on.”

He felt himself blushing. “Well, I don’t know about that,” he said. Back then, he was still a recovering addict, so his hair and skin hadn’t looked so great and he’d been rather… gaunt. But he felt a lot healthier these days, and he liked to think that he looked it, too.

“Oh, I’m sure you were,” Jester replied sweetly, twirling a strand of hair around her manicured finger. Turning to face her, he felt an odd urge to touch her hair. He had no idea why; it was just normal hair, besides being cobalt blue. Maybe it was the fact that she was touching it, and he wanted to get in on that. Stop being weird, he admonished himself. He forced himself to just smile politely at her.

“Listen, is there anything else I can help you with?” he asked.

She smiled so wide it seemed to consume her whole face. “Oh, Fjord, I am so glad you asked! Umumumummmm… let me think… you know, I could really use some help with the overhead light in my room, I think one of the bulbs may be loose…”

He gestured for her to lead the way. As they climbed the stairs, she continued chattering, occasionally plying him with questions.

“Is Fjord your real name?” she asked.

“Uh, no, actually, it’s just a nickname. My first name is, uh, Oskar.”

“Really? Did you know that’s the same name as the guy from Tusk Love?”

“I’ve never seen Tusk Love,” he said ruefully, hoping this wasn’t going to prompt the usual response of “where have you been for the last few years”.

“It’s the best movie of all time! I’d love to watch it with you sometime, you know,” she cooed, winking at him over her shoulder.

“That sounds, uh, really nice.”

He tested the lightbulb in her overhead light, and it turned out to be just fine. Then she had him test her doorknob, just in case. (It was also fine.) Then she wanted him to test her chest of drawers to see if it was “creaky” and he ended up accidentally seeing just how many large-cupped and colorfully patterned bras she owned, which caused him to dissolve into a near coughing fit due to embarrassment.

“Jester? Are you okay in there?” someone called from behind the closed bathroom door.

“I’m fine, Yasha, keep on doing push-ups!” Jester called back. She turned back to him, beaming. “Oh, Oskar, thank you so much for your help, I really don’t know what I’d do without you.”

First of all, we just met today, and second of all, “Oskar”? he didn’t say. Instead he said, “You’re welcome, Jester.”

She continued beaming at him. Her smile was really too pretty; he couldn’t maintain eye contact with her for more than a few seconds. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Ah, well, if there’s nothing else-”

“Oh, wait, one more thing! Are there going to be any house bonding events? With the landlords and all the tenants?”

“...House bonding events?”

“Yes! Like, you know, dinners, parties, movie nights, ice cream socials,” she counted off on her fingers. “Oh, you know, Halloween is coming up this month! I just love Halloween. Are we doing anything for that?”

Fjord gazed at her smiling face, suddenly noticing the subtle freckles on her apple cheeks that almost blended in with her skin tone. He made a split-second decision. “Yes, we are,” he affirmed.

Jester clapped her hands together enthusiastically. “Yay! Oh, don’t even tell me what we’re doing! I’m so excited, I want it to be a surprise!”

“Yes, it will… definitely be a surprise.”


	13. Chapter 13

iMessage  
7:59 pm

Fjord: What do people usally do for Haloween.? -Fjord

Beau: ?  
Beau: Parties, I guess?  
Beau: Costumes  
Beau: Getting shitfaced i think lol  
Beau: Y?

Fjord: We should do a house event for Haloween. I think it would be fun. -Fjord

Beau: House event?  
Beau: Since when do we do “house events” ??

Fjord: Since now, its a good way to get to know Folks . -Fjord

Beau: Ugh fine  
Beau: Ur paying for liq tho


	14. Chapter 14

The next time Molly ran into Sexy Ginger Nerd - whose name was Caleb - they were both in the entryway of the house on a Tuesday morning, on their way to class.

Sexy Ginger Nerd - Caleb - looked rather dashing in an olive green sweater and khakis underneath a long trench coat. It looked like he had shaved that morning, and without the scruff on his face, he appeared much younger and sweeter. He smiled lightly at Molly as he stood up, having just finished tying the laces on his worn leather shoes. His face moved like he was asking Molly a question, but Molly didn’t hear it because he was too busy paying close attention to the way the neckline of Caleb’s sweater revealed a nice bit of throat.

Caleb was staring at him, and for a split second Molly thought that they were both just standing there admiring each other, but then he remembered that Caleb had just said something to him and he was probably making everything awkward by not responding. “Sorry, what was that, dear?” he asked quickly.

“Oh, I just asked if you are also going to class.”

“Oh! Oh, yes I am. Are you?”

“I am as well,” Caleb said. “You go to USF, ja?”

Molly hoped Caleb would just keep asking him simple questions he knew the answers to; hopefully that would prevent him from saying anything weird. “I do go to USF, ja!” he exclaimed. Or not.

Thankfully, Caleb seemed to find the “ja” amusing and not irritating. “Would you like to ride the metro together, then? I am afraid I am not the most entertaining person, but I can tell you anything you want to know about iambic pentameter.”

Molly beamed. He was so hopelessly endeared by this statement and couldn’t even quantify why. Maybe he just found Caleb hopelessly endearing as a person, and so he was predisposed to swoon over any innocuous sentence that came out of his mouth. You barely know him, he admonished himself.

He linked his arm through Caleb’s; Caleb looked mildly surprised by this gesture of affection, but not upset, which was definitely a good sign. “Well, you can start by explaining to me what iambic pentameter is.” Molly knew what iambic pentameter was. He had been a theater major. But he wanted to hear Caleb explain it, and he didn’t remember much about the year and a half of college he’d done back then, anyway.

Caleb seemed more than happy to oblige. He spent most of the trip to the metro station telling Molly all about iambs, and once they got to the station, he kept pausing while they swiped their cards or walked through busy doorways before continuing, which was another thing that Molly found hopelessly endearing. As they stepped onto the train, he even placed his hand on the small of Molly’s back and murmured “Watch your step now”, which was an experience that Molly barely survived.

Once they were situated on the train, standing and clutching adjacent handholds, Caleb turned to Molly, tucking his ginger hair behind one ear. “But you’ve listened to me talk for nearly fourteen minutes now,” he said. “Please, tell me about yourself, Mister Mollymauk. I have sadly been remiss in my knowledge about the very person I’m traveling with.”

Molly hoped fervently that the silvery highlighter he’d put on that morning hid his blush. “Well, ah…” God, what were some interesting facts about him? He should keep a list prepared for situations like this. “I’m from Dublin originally, but I lived in LA most of my life.” Ugh, boring.

Somehow, Caleb looked genuinely interested. “Really now? How did you end up in San Francisco?”

“Uh, I just wanted… a change of scene, I guess. LA is really intense. Living in San Francisco has been… calmer.” Was that too vague? What did normal people sound like when they talked?

“Mhm?” Caleb nodded, prompting Molly to elaborate.

“I’ve been living here for about two years, and I just found out fairly recently that my half-brother is here, too. He’s lived in this small seaside town up north most of his life, you see, and I was so surprised to find him here. But both of our leases were set to end around the same time, and so we were tossing around the idea of potentially moving in together, and then this marvelous house appeared on the market, and so it was kismet, really.” Molly winked at Caleb for good measure. He found that it never hurt to wink at people, especially when he felt awkward and wanted to stop talking. To his surprise, Caleb looked rather flustered; perhaps he wasn’t used to being winked at. Molly would have to wink at him much more often, if that was the case.

“Ja, kismet,” Caleb said. “So what are you studying at USF, then?”

“Forensic pathology. I’ve just always been fascinated by it, and so I figured, why not settle down and study it for real?”

“Of course. So you studied it in LA then, too?”

“Well, no, because - Uh, I mean, yes, I was, yeah. Sorry, I misunderstood your question,” Molly laughed nervously. College seemed like as good a cover story as any. Considering he’d lived in San Francisco for two years, it was perhaps surprising he hadn’t come up with one yet, but strangely enough, it hadn’t really come up before. Did he just not have any close friends? It really seemed like it. He tried to tamp down the dawning horror at his own apparent social isolation. Get it together, Tealeaf.

“Uh huh,” Caleb nodded, giving him a searching look. Molly really hoped he didn’t read tabloids ever. He didn’t seem like the type, but his sister had somehow noticed his resemblance to Lucien Indramurthy even despite the short purple hair and the deliberately distracting makeup and ostentatious jewelry and all the expensive new tattoos and piercings and it was entirely possible that she was on her way to figuring out his secret.

Mercifully, this line of conversation was ended by a sudden crowd of people from the current stop, and when they started talking again, it was about an eccentric professor that Caleb had studied with last quarter and with whom Molly had a passing acquaintance. It was shallow enough conversation that Molly could devote half his brain to saying reasonable-sounding things and the other half to analyzing exactly which shade of blue best matched Caleb’s eye color. When they arrived on campus inevitably had to part ways to go to their separate classes, Caleb smiled and said, “Well, it was very nice talking to you, Mister Mollymauk.”

“Ja, you too!” He might as well just lean into the whole “ja” thing now.

Caleb shuffled his feet and looked down at the ground; he seemed slightly nervous. Oh God, was he trying to think of a good way to tell Molly to leave him alone in all future instances?

“Uh, would you perhaps like to ride the metro together next Tuesday, too?” he asked. He seemed like he was genuinely concerned that the answer might not be yes. “And, ah, any other Tuesdays as well?”

Molly wasn’t sure how much time passed before he said anything, because he was in a sort of suspended state where Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet theme was playing softly in the background and Caleb’s face was wreathed in glowing pink roses and possibly they were both hovering a few inches off the ground. But it was probably more time than was socially acceptable. “Yes!” he blurted. “I would love to do that!” He didn’t add that he would also love to do Caleb, but it was a near thing.

Caleb looked pleased and a bit relieved. “How lovely,” he said. “Well, I’ll see you… possibly today, ja? We do live together,” he chuckled.

“Oh, yes!” Molly replied, laughing so loudly that a woman passing by shot him a weird look.

The rest of the day was awash in rosy light, at least from Molly’s perspective. When he really thought about it, he hadn’t liked anyone this much in quite a while. Most of the people he’d talked to in the last couple of years were - well, Caduceus, and also a string of random individuals he had conversations with at bars and then didn’t stay in touch with. He’d also hooked up with an (embarrassingly high) number of people in San Francisco, but he’d never really been attracted to them in the way he was attracted to Caleb. He didn’t just want to see what Caleb looked like under all those clothes - well, obviously he did want that. But he also wanted a lot of other things he hadn’t wanted for a very long time. Holding hands, for one. That was a thing. And kissing - not heated makeouts, but little pecks exchanged as they walked by each other in the kitchen. He wanted the two of them to be so close emotionally that they knew the passcodes to each other’s phones and remembered each other’s birthdays without having to write them down. He could even imagine wanting Caleb to see him naked - not out of the necessity of being naked in order to, well, you know, but simply because he wanted Caleb to see his body and like it, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that about anyone. He wanted to be naked in front of Caleb emotionally, too; he could even picture telling him his life story, someday in the future when he was sure that it wouldn’t change anything between them.

God, he was getting so ahead of himself. They had ridden the metro together once.

But we’re going to ride together once a week for the foreseeable future, pestered the hopeless romantic part of his brain. Well. He would just have to see how things panned out.


	15. Chapter 15

Yasha finally met Beau on a Tuesday afternoon in the kitchen, after Jester had sent her downstairs to make her ramen because she was deeply absorbed in a drawing she was working on and didn’t want to get up.

Yasha noticed the other woman standing in the doorway when she turned to grab another green onion from the refrigerator. Ruefully, she noticed that this was, in fact, the same woman she’d seen in the metro station that one time. Now she really hoped that Beau never went into her and Jester’s room.

She wondered how long Beau had just been standing there by herself in the shadowy hallway. Perhaps she was sad about something? Sometimes when Yasha felt sad, it overwhelmed her so much that she couldn’t move, and she would just stay still as a statue in whatever position she’d been in when she thought of the sad thing. She would stay so still that her eyes wouldn’t even look away from whatever they were seeing, and her mouth wouldn’t even open to respond when Jester tried to get her attention. She hoped that wasn’t happening to Beau right now; she didn’t know her very well, but she didn’t like the thought of anyone else being so sad that they couldn’t move. It was a quiet, all-encompassing, deathly type of sadness, like rigor mortis for the living.

“Are you all right?” Yasha asked her, genuinely concerned.

Beau looked like she’d just woken up from an unsettling dream. “Oh - huh? Yeah? Wait, uh - Sorry, what did you say?”

She didn’t sound sad; she just sounded confused. Maybe she’d been sleepwalking? It was a bit early in the day for people to be sleepwalking, but Yasha couldn’t judge her for keeping odd hours.

“Were you sleepwalking?” she asked gently, hoping she didn’t sound at all condescending. Sleepwalking was nothing to be embarrassed about.

Beau just stared at her for a long moment, looking even more confused than before. “...What?”

Yasha gazed back quizzically, resisting the urge to reach forward and touch Beau’s forehead to test her temperature. Jester sometimes acted like this when she had a bad fever.

“You just seem a little… lost, there in the doorway. Are you feeling all right?” Yasha asked again, making sure to speak slowly in case Beau really was sick. Sometimes when you had a sinus infection your ears got plugged up and it was harder to hear.

“Oh, I’m… sorry, I’m fine, I just zoned out for a sec there. You - You’re, uh, Yasha, right?” Beau asked.

“Yes, that’s me. You must be my landlord.”

“I - yeah, that I am. The landlord, I mean. Is, uh, me. Hey, you know what? I gotta - uh, laundry. You know how it is. Bye!”

Before Yasha could fully parse out the meaning of that sentence, Beau had darted down the hallway in the direction of the laundry room.

Yasha stared after her, a bit thrown by the abrupt ending to the brief, strange interaction. Maybe she needed to brush up on her English grammar, because she was having a hard time understanding any of the things that Beau had said to her. Perhaps Harry Potter wasn’t good enough English practice; she should ask Jester to recommend her a more advanced book to try. She was further motivated to do this by the desire to more easily talk to Beau. Beau was just as pretty as she’d been that day on the metro station. It was nice to see her up close, and in different lighting; Yasha wanted to see what she looked like in all sorts of different lighting, and whether they made her hair appear different shades of brown. She also hoped that someday she and Beau would be friendly enough that Beau would let Yasha touch her hair; a woman on the Russian national swim team had had an undercut as well, and Yasha had always thought the shaved part looked incredibly soft and nice, but she hadn’t known that other woman well enough to ask to touch her hair. Jester let Yasha touch her hair whenever she wanted, and even asked for it sometimes, and so maybe someday she and Beau could be at that level of closeness, too. That was a dream, though. A “reach goal” - this was an English phrase she’d learned from Jester yesterday. Beau was her reach goal.


	16. Chapter 16

Beau practically sprinted to the laundry room and didn’t bother turning the lights on once she got there. She just groped around in the blackness until she found the washing machine that was closer to the door, clambered on top of it, and sat with her back against the wall, tilting her head back and trying to calm her heart rate.  
“I heard all of that, and it was the worst thing ever,” said a scratchy voice from the darkness.

Beau startled so hard she nearly fell off the washing machine. “What the fuck,” she whisper-screamed. “Who’s there?”

Somebody flipped the light switch, and as she blinked in the brightness, Beau saw that it was the teenage girl who lived in the attic. She was wearing an extremely oversized tie-dye shirt, bike shorts, and no shoes, and her long, stringy black hair hung like Spanish moss over her tiny, four-foot-something frame. Her enormous green eyes stared judgmentally up at Beau. Weird kid. “Don’t freak out, it’s just me,” she said.

Beau scowled at her. “Why the fuck were you hanging out in the laundry room with the lights off?”

“I was gonna try to scare Caleb. He’s doing his laundry today. But so much for that, I guess. I don’t wanna give my landlord a heart attack, that’s probably bad juju.”

“Well, don’t do that anymore, you practically fucking killed me,” Beau grumbled.

“Sorry, I won’t. I’ll try not to, anyway; it was pretty funny, and a kid like me has gotta find reasons to laugh in this dark, cruel world.”

“Okay, whatever. Why don’t you torment Fjord instead? He’s hilarious when he’s scared, he like screams a bunch and shit.”

“Fjord’s less fun to mess with because I don’t like him as a person.”

“You don’t like him? Why? I mean, I get it, I just wanna know your reasoning.”

Nott folded her arms and chewed her lip. “Bad aura.”

“Okay, I don’t know what the fuck that means.”

Nott shrugged. “You don’t have to. Anyway, back to what we were talking about earlier. That conversation you just had with that tall hot lady? Awful.”

Beau flicked a piece of dryer lint at her. “I don’t remember us talking about that, ever.”

“Well, we should be talking about it, because you’re an adult woman and you don’t know how to talk to your crush! That’s pretty sad. I mean, I’m just a kid, and I’m better at flirting than you!” Nott remarked.

Beau flushed with embarrassment. She hated that Nott was right, so she tried to deflect. “Why do you keep mentioning the fact that you’re a kid? It makes you seem like you’re actually an adult who’s badly pretending to be a kid.”

Nott snickered. “See, that’s funny. Where’s that wit when you actually need it?”

Beau groaned. Clearly she wasn’t getting out of this. “Fuck off, okay? I’m not good at talking to girls, ugh. I’ve only ever dated one person and she basically did all the heavy lifting when it came to, like, the courtship and shit, and then she broke up with me and by that time I was too old to, like, learn the basics of flirting or whatever.”

“Oh, please, you’re never too old for that. My brother could seriously use a lesson, and I’m pretty sure he’s older than you.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not interested in your brother. I’m a ladies-only event.”

Nott guffawed. “Oh, Christ, that was definitely not where I was going with that. Besides, I can tell you really like this girl, anyway.”

Beau’s anger flared at the feeling of being pigeonholed. “Hey, I don’t ‘really’ like her, okay? She’s, like, fine, I guess, all right? I just don’t meet very many women at my job, that’s all. I’m a kung fu instructor, so I only ever meet, like, parents, and kids. I’m probably just conditioned to be attracted to, like, any single adult woman that crosses my path.”

Nott shrugged. “You can keep telling yourself that, I guess.”

Beau groaned louder and thumped the back of her head against the wall. “Oh my God, okay, fine! She’s pretty, okay? And I’ve only ever seen her like a few times but I always freeze up and don’t know how to talk to her! And now that she’s talked to me, it turns out she’s like, a really nice person! On top of like, being tall and well-dressed and having kick-ass hair and being, like, beautiful.” Beau mumbled the last word, too embarrassed to say it at full volume.

Nott smirked and cupped a hand around one ear. “Sorry, what was that?”

“You heard me, you little shitbird.”

“No, I really didn’t! I have this thing that’s sort of like narcolepsy but with deafness instead of sleeping.”

“Oh my God, if you keep bullshitting me, I’ll never talk to you again!”

“Fine, fine. But if you won’t say it to me, you should at least say it to her,” Nott sing-songed.

Beau threw another piece of lint at her. “Hey, I’m your fucking landlord! If you keep disrespecting me, I’ll double your rent.”

Nott picked up the lint and threw it back. “If you do that, I’ll fill all the air vents with bees!”

“I’ll call your school and tell them you’re actually just a really short Russian chaos agent just pretending to be a student!”

“I’ll tell Yasha that you drool so much you have to put a garbage bag over your pillow when you sleep!”

“Oh my God, you little freak! I’ll tell Caleb that -”

It went on like this for at least another half an hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friend! thank u for reading this far! i just kind of posted everything i already had written all at the same time, but I'll continue posting more as I write it, and u can reasonably expect at least one chapter per week!


	17. Chapter 17

After Beau left to presumably do laundry, Yasha brought Jester’s ramen upstairs. Yasha felt the strange urge to talk to someone; maybe it wasn’t a very strange urge, but for Yasha it was definitely strange, because Yasha only ever really talked to people if they talked to her first and even then sometimes only if they spoke in a way that clearly demanded a response. It felt weird to actually want to talk, and even weirder that she wasn’t fully sure what it was she wanted to talk about.

Jester was hunched over the glowing screen of her expensive tablet, wearing her second-favorite polka-dotted pajamas and a pair of hot pink headphones that faintly emitted the chorus of a track of Carly Rae Jepsen’s latest album, which Yasha was able to recognize because Jester had played it for her enough times by now. She looked like she didn’t want to be bothered.

Yasha briefly considered retreating to the bathroom, but she’d already worked out today, and she didn’t want to put her body under too much stress. She glanced at her drawing, taped up on the wall among prints of Jester’s own art and all of her favorite anime posters. She was still surprised at how much she’d enjoyed making it, and how nice it was to look at. It didn’t hurt that it was a picture of Beau, too.

Maybe she would go out in the garden, take some photos of flowers on her phone, and then draw pictures of them later. She was certain Jester would loan her a pen and paper again. Besides, her phone seriously needed some photos that weren’t just screenshots of important emails. She grabbed it off her nightstand and headed downstairs.

Outside, the evening air was balmy with only a slight autumnal crispness. The sun had just set, and the sky was a watercolor palette of soft blue and hazy gold and blush pink. It was beautiful lighting for flower photography. Yasha took lots of pictures of the colorful poppies growing behind the house; the cream-colored clapboard behind them made for a perfect backdrop. Their colors were so warm that Yasha didn’t think pencils would do them justice. Maybe she should try paint.

She took several snapshots of some spectacular stargazer lilies that looked like they’d just been planted, and of a bed of chrysanthemums which bloomed in the colors of fall leaves. There were some lovely purple aster and blue forget-me-nots growing near the patio, too. As she knelt to take a close-up of a brilliantly yellow goldenrod blossom, she noticed a person sitting on a stone bench at the back of the garden, nearly hidden by the low-hanging branches of a vine maple.

Even in the growing shadows of dusk, this person stood out. His curly hair was the same shade of purple as the aster she’d just photographed. He was also wearing what looked like either a dress or a long jacket of shimmery dark green mesh, underneath which he had on some very tight silky-looking plum-colored pants and a patterned fuchsia top with a complicated neckline. His shoes seemed like they might have belonged to Jester: high-top sneakers completely encrusted with silvery rhinestones. Yasha was straining her eyes to make out whether he really had bands of silver metal wrapped around his upper arms or if it was just a trick of the light when he suddenly seemed to notice her. “Oh, hello there,” he called out, smiling brightly.

Yasha stood up, pocketing her phone. Could this be one of her housemates? It had to be; she couldn’t imagine why anyone else would be sitting by themselves in the garden. “Hello,” she said.

“Would you like to come sit?” he asked.

Yasha would. How funny that earlier she had been hoping to talk to someone, and here someone was.

When she sat down next to him on the mossy stone bench, she noticed that he was, in fact, wearing silver bangles around his upper arms, and a lot more jewelry in addition to that. His style reminded her a little of Jester’s. She would probably get along well with him.

“Good evening, darling, pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said. “The name’s Mollymauk Tealeaf, Molly to my friends.”

“I’m Yasha,” she said, shaking his hand.

“Yasha. Excellent name. I assume you also live here in this fine house?”

“Yes, I live on the second floor.”

“How lovely! I live in the basement with my brother. It’s very nice, actually. I just wanted to come out here for a bit of peace and fresh air.”

“It is very peaceful out here,” Yasha nodded.

“Yes, and really thanks to my brother! He’s the one who planted most of these flowers. The man has a green thumb like I’ve never seen.”

Yasha gazed appreciatively at the lush vegetation all around them. When she’d first moved in, the backyard had mostly been lawn, but now there were overflowing flower beds and towering shrubs and hedges as full as pincushions. There was still lawn, of course, but even the grass seemed healthier and more emerald-looking. “He’s done beautiful work,” she said fervently.

Molly nodded. “I take it you’re quite a fan of nature?”

Yasha hadn’t ever really thought of herself as a fan of anything, but she supposed if she was a fan of something, it was probably flowers. “Yes, I am a big fan of flowers,” she said.

Molly chuckled. “I did notice you taking some photos of them.”

“Yes, I’d like to paint them. I’ve never painted before, but I want to try it.”

Molly smiled at her as if he’d just discovered something really wonderful on her face. “I admire that spirit, I really do.”

They sat for a moment, just listening to the evening birdsong and the distant hum of city noise from further away. It wasn’t awkward. Just restful.

“I find myself out here, thinking about romantic love like I usually do,” Molly said after a pause.

Yasha was interested in this subject. She felt like she knew a few things about it because she listened to Jester talk about it very frequently. “Oh?”

He sighed softly. “Yes. I think I may be in love. With a very nice man whom I hardly know.”

Yasha nodded in understanding. “There’s someone I think I might really like, too. But I also hardly know her. I’ve only seen her twice, really. But both times, she looked very beautiful.”

“More beautiful than these flowers?”

Yasha thought about it for a long moment. “I would say so, yes,” she concluded sincerely.

“So is my man,” Molly said. “More beautiful than these flowers, I mean.” He turned to face her. “Are you in love?”

Yasha thought about it for another, longer moment. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know how to tell.”

“That’s very fair. I’m not really sure how I’m able to tell, to be honest. I think maybe I just fall in love very easily,” Molly said.

“That doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. Falling in love is pleasant, from what I’ve heard.”

“It is, you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t be so embarrassed about it. I think I’m just nervous about how vulnerable it makes me. I mean, it’s like I’m taking my beating heart right out of my ribcage, and setting it outside in the open air, where practically anything could happen to it, you know?”

Yasha nodded. She hadn’t thought of it that way before, but it made a lot of sense. “I understand.”

Molly looked thoughtful. “Maybe that’s something that your friends help you with.”

“What is?”

“Protecting your beating, bloody heart, when it’s not within the safety of your ribcage.”

If Yasha’s heart was outside her body, Jester would probably help her protect it from harm. She was almost certain of that fact. She didn’t know why she was so certain, because she couldn’t think of anyone else she’d trusted so implicitly at any point in the recent past. She felt rather proud of herself for the fact that she trusted Jester. It was a sign that she wasn’t too sad or too haunted to do something that normal people did.

“Yes, I think I have a friend who would protect my heart,” she said, nodding.

“I have my brother,” Molly said. And then he was silent for a moment. “I don’t know if I have anyone else, though.”

He looked so sad that Yasha started to feel sad, too. He looked the way she probably did when she thought about how no one would be there to pick her up at the airport if she ever went back to Russia. She would have to get a taxi. It seemed like such a small thing and she never used to mind, but on the two occasions she and Jester had flown to Odessa, Jester’s mother had been waiting for them at the gate with a sign that read “Sweet Daughter” in Vlax Romani, and Yasha’s heart had ached from the simple, intimate kindness of the gesture.

Yasha looked at Molly, who was currently gazing at the bedazzled toes of his sneakers and probably not really seeing them. She made a decision to trust him. Perhaps it was a great leap to trust someone you’d only just met, especially when you only trusted one other person in the entire world. But on this Tuesday evening, in this garden, it felt very easy.

She lightly rested a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at her in surprise. “I’ll protect your heart, Molly,” she said, with as much sincerity as she could muster.

“You will?” he replied, sad face transforming into a smile.

“Yes, and I’ll be very good at it. Did you know that I’m a bodyguard?”

He gasped. “You are?”

She nodded, smiling conspiratorially. “Yes. Look -” She pulled at her collar to reveal a bit of her bulletproof vest. Molly gasped again, and linked his arm with hers. She leaned into the touch. Jester did that sort of thing a lot, and she enjoyed the feeling of closeness.

“Darling, you must tell me all about that! Listen -” Molly glanced around the backyard. “It’s getting rather dark out here. Would you like to go and have some ice cream inside? And perhaps watch a movie? I haven’t seen one in ages!”

Yasha loved ice cream and movies. She hadn’t been exposed to them much before working for Jester, especially in combination, but they were now some of her favorite things. “Yes, let’s do that,” she said. ‘But I have one request: can we not watch Tusk Love? It’s my client’s favorite movie and so I’ve already seen it three times in the last two weeks.”

Molly positively beamed. “Dear, I would love nothing more than to watch a film with you that isn’t Tusk Love.”

And so as the night wore on they settled into the cushy vintage sofa in the living room with bowls of neapolitan ice cream they’d found in the freezer. It wasn’t technically theirs, but they figured no one would care if they ate it because the expiration date was last Thursday. It took them a while to figure out how to work the TV, but luckily Yasha was industrious and Molly was an endless reservoir of positive encouragement, and before long, 10 Things I Hate About You was playing, and after a while Jester wandered downstairs to see where Yasha had gone and of course she immediately joined them on the couch and insisted they all snuggle closer. Just as Yasha had predicted, she and Molly got along like a house on fire, and before long they were chatting about fashion and makeup and how “fuckable” the male lead in the movie was - they tried to get Yasha to join in on this line of conversation, but she was much too shy to say that word out loud, and she had also been paying much more attention to the female lead, anyway. And then the movie ended and Jester and Molly wanted to watch another one, which led to a playful argument between the two of them over which rom-coms were the best. Yasha went to the kitchen to get more ice cream while Molly gushed about Julia Roberts and Jester arranged the blankets and throw cushions to make a better “pillow palace” for the three of them.

Standing in the pale glow of the refrigerator light, listening to the laughter of her two (two!) friends, Yasha felt more content than she’d felt in a very long time. She realized rather suddenly that she loved this home. Maybe she understood what Molly had meant when he said that he could tell when he was in love, because understanding the love she felt right now was very easy, as easy as taking a deep breath. It was a bit like having her heart outside her body, in the sense that her heart felt cleaner, as if it was exposed to fresh air. So this is what it feels like, she thought.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for the lovely comments! yall are so sweet and funny, I love hearing from you <3

This wasn’t the first time Jester had gone on a bad date, but it never seemed to get any easier to deal with. Bad dates felt like the sort of thing that people theoretically became immune to over time. But Jester had never been great at becoming immune to things over time, theoretically or otherwise. She still cried every single time she watched Moana, even though it wasn’t even that sad and it certainly wasn’t any more sad the thirty-seventh time. She still hated eating peas just as much as she had when she was four. She still couldn’t sleep in a room with a ticking clock because she could never tune out the sound no matter how many hours went by. And every first date that didn’t go well crushed her spirits just as much as her botched first kiss had crushed her spirits when she was fifteen. (In her defense, it was rather difficult to kiss well when you had braces with rubber bands and also one of those horrible devices that was supposed to expand the roof of your mouth or something.)

As far as bad dates went, it wasn’t the absolute worst ever. It had been with a girl from her printmaking class whom Jester hadn’t been that excited about to begin with, but after she’d asked Jester out, Jester had constructed a narrative in her head about how this girl had been secretly in love with her all quarter and now they were going to really hit it off at the weird hipster coffee shop down the block from school. As it turned out, the girl was probably not in love with her, and this reality forced Jester to admit that without the pleasant sensation of believing that someone else felt strongly about her, it was harder to convince herself that she cared about this girl very much. In fact, based on their conversation, it became increasingly apparent that this girl was clearly not over her ex and had seemingly asked out Jester as a method of pushing herself to move on from the past (which evidently wasn’t working very well). Jester had no interest in being someone else’s method of pushing themselves to move on from the past; Jester had no interest in playing any kind of supporting role in anyone else’s personal narrative.

After about forty-five minutes, she had flashed her secret hand signal at Yasha (who was sitting by herself at a table across the room) and Yasha had approached them and pretended to try to get them to sign a petition to repeal some obscure zoning law, and Jester had very seriously turned to her date and said, “I’m so sorry to leave you but this issue is so important to me and I really need to learn more about it!” and her date had nodded, looking slightly confused, and then Yasha and Jester had walked out together and pretended to discuss legislation in the state of California until they were sure they were out of her date’s earshot.

And then they were home, and Jester couldn’t decide if she really wanted to talk about the date with Yasha or if she just really wanted to never talk about it at all, ever again. After several minutes of sitting on their adjacent beds in silence, Yasha staring at Jester with a concerned and confused expression and Jester pouting and avoiding eye contact while she mentally interrogated herself about what she needed right now, Yasha politely asked if she could go do her workout, and Jester didn’t have the heart to say no.

Jester still wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted at the moment, but it became increasingly clear that sitting alone in a quiet room was not it.

She thought about texting Molly to ask if he wanted to hang out, but then she remembered that it was a Friday so he was definitely still in class right now. And even if he were home, she imagined that she probably wouldn’t be the most fun to hang out with, because at the moment she felt like she only wanted to talk about herself or not talk at all, and generally friends didn’t enjoy it when you shut down the conversation if they tried to talk about anything that wasn’t directly related to your own life and the terrible first date you just had.

She opened the door in her room that kind of looked like a closet, but wasn’t one. On the other side there was a spiral staircase that led up into darkness. She didn’t climb this staircase very often because Beau had told her it led to the roof and she also knew there were people living in the attic, and didn’t want to bother them by hanging out right outside their window. But at the moment she didn’t care. She just wanted to be in a place where she didn’t feel like a person.

Up on the widow’s watch, it was windy due to the gusts coming off the ocean that day, but a protective wrought-iron guardrail ran around the perimeter to protect Jester from falling off. Jester looked around; it was pretty empty up here. Maybe she would advise Beau to buy some patio furniture. The shingles were also starting to fall off of the angled roof which wrapped around two sides of the square enclosure. That was another thing she ought to tell Beau about. Or maybe the other cute landlord, Fjord. Maybe he’d let her hang out with him while he replaced the shingles. Maybe he’d take his shirt off because of the manual labor – that was a thing people did, right?

From up here, she could see the hills of the city cascading below her, picturesque suburbs coalescing in a sparkling downtown. The wind painted whitecaps on the slate-blue sea. She could even distantly make out the Golden Gate Bridge, and the tiny glittering matchbox cars running back and forth along it.

She stared out at the view and sighed deeply. If she had thought to bring her headphones up with her, she could be listening to “Your Type” by Carly Rae Jepsen right now. It wasn’t a perfect analogue to her current situation, but it expressed an emotion that was adjacent to or overlapping the emotion she felt currently.

She glanced around the deserted widow’s watch surreptitiously, wondering whether the attic people would care if she played music from her phone speaker out here. If it were her, she would probably be grateful that someone was playing good music for free right outside her window.

After only two and a half tracks of her favorite album and only five and a half deep, wistful sighs directed at the vast ocean, a banging noise emanated from the attic’s one window.

“Hey!” someone yelled. “Can you keep it down out there?”

Jester turned around sullenly. Behind her, a very petite teenage girl in a ratty sweater that fell almost to her knees was climbing out of the window. In the shadowy attic, a red-headed man’s face peered curiously at Jester.

Jester felt a lump in her throat. Could nothing go her way today? It was odd, because she hadn’t felt like she was going to cry earlier, but maybe the little unhappinesses were slowly accumulating and being accosted by her housemates was just one more little unhappiness that tipped the scales in favor of tears.

“I’m sorry, I’m just having a moment out here, okay?” Jester said, trying not to let her voice shake. “I’ll go, I’m sorry.” But she didn’t move; she just wrapped her arms tighter around her knees and huffed out a breath.

The teenage girl crept up to her; in her peripheral vision, Jester saw her giving her an appraising look.

“Caleb, I think she’s crying?” she called back to the man in the window, sounding like she’d just seen a car in the driveway that didn’t belong to anyone she knew.

“Oh, dear,” said Caleb, voice slightly muffled by the wind.

The two of them sat down on either side of her; Caleb was wearing woolly socks, and the teenager was barefoot. It was sort of nice of them to come out on the roof with her, Jester thought.

Caleb cleared his throat. “Are you, ah… Are you doing… all right?” he asked awkwardly.

Jester shook her head. “Not really.”

The teenage girl flashed Caleb a look like ‘Duh, obviously she’s not all right.’ She rested a small, bony hand on Jester’s upper arm. “Listen, toots… It’s been a day for you, hasn’t it?”

Jester unfolded her legs, looking the girl in the green eyes. “Yes, it really has. I’m just - I’m just - having a - a hard time.” Oh, dear, and now she was really crying. In front of these strangers, no less. How embarrassing.

Caleb looked alarmed at this turn of events, but the girl just wrapped an arm around Jester and stroked her hair with her other hand. “What was it? Bad test score? Bad job interview?”

“Bad date,” Jester mumbled through a sob.

The girl tutted sympathetically and Caleb nodded with understanding.

“We’ve all been there,” the girl said. “Well, not me personally. I have a one hundred percent success rate with first dates. But I’m very empathetic towards those less fortunate.”

“You haven’t been on any first dates, Spatz,” said Caleb.

“Exactly! One hundred percent success rate.”

“One could also argue that that’s a zero percent success rate.”

The girl hummed skeptically. “Um, I’m taking a math class right now, and I’m, like, completely sure that you haven’t taken one since your first year of undergrad.”

“Ja, but you are barely passing that class…”

“Only because I don’t do the homework! And can you blame me? It’s such a waste of time!”

“It is pretty stupid homework,” Caleb relented.

Jester giggled and sniffed a little, entertained by their banter. The girl gently rubbed her back. “My name’s Nott, by the way,” in a tone softer than her usual scratchy voice. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Jester,” she said. “I live downstairs in the master bedroom.”

“Oh, with the really tall scary lady?”

Jester laughed; it was hard for her to imagine people thinking of Yasha as scary when she’d seen how Yasha reacted to the sight of erasers shaped like tiny animals, or bars of soap shaped like roses, or cookies shaped like hearts. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Ahhhh,” Caleb and Nott both said in unison.

“We have seen her around a few times,” Caleb said.

“Yeah, we’re both a little scared of her, to be honest,” Nott admitted.

“I think that she could kill me with one punch,” Caleb said very seriously.

“I know about her because our landlord has a crush on her,” Nott said matter-of-factly.

“What?” Caleb and Jester both exclaimed at the same time, equally intrigued. “Why haven’t you mentioned this before?” Caleb asked at the same time that Jester asked “Which landlord?”

“The jock one! And it just didn’t come up before, Caleb, sue me!”

“I think they are both jocks, Spatz,” said Caleb.

Nott looked doubtful. “I don’t know about that. Like, have you seen Fjord’s muscles?”

“Yes, I have,” Jester said ardently.

“Bit of a twink, if you ask me.”

“Do you understand what a twink is?” Caleb asked.

“So Beau has a crush on Yasha?” Jester interjected.

Nott smirked, clearly glad to be the purveyor of gossip. “Totally. Head over heels for her. Super embarrassing!”

Jester laughed gleefully. “O.M.G., I cannot wait to tease Beau about this! That is so good! Thank you for the intel, Nott!” She wrapped Nott up in a tight hug.

“Ooh, can I come with you when you tease her? I love making fun of her, she gets so wound up,” Nott said excitedly.

“I don’t think you two should be ‘making fun’ of our landlord,” said Caleb, sounding dubious.

“My brother hates fun,” Nott informed Jester.

Jester looked at Caleb pityingly. “Is this true?”

Caleb nodded. “It is. I hate fun, I am opposed to it on moral and political grounds.” His face was so deadpan that Jester couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

She realized that only a few minutes ago she’d been crying, and now she was laughing, which was good, of course, but it also made her remember why she’d been crying. She couldn’t muster up the same level of unhappiness she’d been feeling earlier, though. It wasn’t there anymore; she’d left it behind at some point.

She wrapped an arm around Caleb and Nott each and pulled them close, giggling. “We three are best friends now, right?”

“Yay, yes we are!” Nott exclaimed. “All right, if you insist,” said Caleb.

“Oh, come on, Caleb, you know you love us!” yelled Nott.

“Yeah, Caaaaaleb!” echoed Jester.

Caleb smiled. “All right, fine, I guess we are best friends now.”

“Rooftop sleepoverrrr!” Jester crowed as Nott giggled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so when I said there's probably going to be at least one new chapter per week, I lowkey forgot that I'm gonna be offline for two weeks in the middle of August because I'm a summer camp counselor D: I'll probably post at least another time before that but if this fic doesn't get updated for like a while afterwards, that's why


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again thank you all so much for all the comments and kudos! I'm so glad yall are liking this fic as much I like writing it <3

iMessage  
5:42 pm

Jester: OMG did u guys get the email from Fjord???? [pink sparkly heart emoji] [eyes emoji] [girl looking at computer emoji]

Molly: No omg what did he say??????? :0

Jester: THERES GONNA BE A HOUSE HALLOWEEN PARTY!!!! [pumpkin emoji] [champagne glasses emoji] [fireworks emoji] [kiss emoji] [ghost emoji] [smirking cat emoji]

Molly: YAASSSSSSS!!!!  
Molly: Ok ladies focus up  
Molly: We gotta start planning the group costume NOW

Yasha: Costume?

Jester: Omg Yasha have u never done halloween before?? U r in for a TREAT [candy emoji] [dancing girls emoji] [sparkle emoji] [black heart emoji]

Molly: OR a TRICK >:D

Jester: OMG yES mollyyyyyy [two swirling hearts emoji] [devil emoji] [laughing/crying emoji] [painting nails emoji]

Molly: But YES back to business: we’re going to have to wear costumes to the party, and OBVIOUSLY since we’re best friends we’re going to have to wear matching ones  
Molly: ALSO they’re gonna have to be costumes that make us look sexy as hell

Jester: UM molly we ARE sexy as hell…………… but ok [side-eye emoji] [lipstick emoji]

Molly: Exactly!!! This is our chance to show ourselves off like never before, queens ;P

Jester: OMG Yasha I am so excited to see you dressed up in a costume!!!! [heart eyes emoji] [dancer emoji] [bouquet emoji]

Molly: ME TOO UGH  
Molly: Who’s free to go shopping this weekend??? I know a street that has like a bunch of amazing vintage stores <3

Jester: YES PLEASE  
Jester: YES YES YES  
Jester: PLEAAASSEEEE [rainbow emoji]

Yasha: O.K.

Molly: <3


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after this chapter this fic will probably not be updated for at least two weeks because I'll be out in the woods being a camp counselor and like changing children's lives and getting bitten by mosquitoes and all that good stuff! however, thank u for reading this far and u can expect updates in the last week of august :)

Beau wasn’t sure how, but at some point she and Caduceus had started eating breakfast together.

Or, she guessed, for him it was technically… dinner? He came back from the morgue (or whatever death-related place he worked, Beau wasn’t entirely sure) around the same time she headed out to the dojo to warm up before her morning classes, and so they just happened to be in the kitchen at the same time a lot. Caduceus always brewed his weird tea and made oatmeal with at least three different types of nuts and berries, and Beau prepared her typical breakfast of a smoothie with protein powder, Greek yoghurt, orange juice with extra Vitamin C, and whatever fruit she could find in the refrigerator.

It didn’t look as appetizing as Caduceus’ meal and it probably didn’t taste as good either, but Beau had never really learned to actually cook and she figured that by this point she’d settled into enough of a routine that it was no longer necessary. Back in Albuquerque, she’d subsisted on takeout and protein shakes and the occasional granola bar she found mostly smashed at the bottom of her gym bag and she’d been fine, so her eating patterns hadn’t changed much since her move to San Francisco. Well, she’d sort of been fine. The weird thing about getting older was that sometimes it got hard to tell the difference between surviving something and enjoying it. Sometimes you got so used to things being a certain way that it was hard to imagine them being different, and what was the point in changing if you couldn’t picture anything else?

Things had changed a lot in recent months, though. Her room was much nicer since Jester had helped her paint the walls a pleasant peach hue. She sort of, maybe, possibly had a new crush, which was a big deal since she hadn’t really felt anything like that about anyone since… well, Tori. She liked her current dojo a lot better than her old dojo because here in San Francisco there was a much lower chance that her mother would call and expect her to leave work early to help her with something.

She was also sort of friends with Caduceus now, which was unexpected. She hadn’t known anyone like him back in Albuquerque and she hadn’t imagined the two of them would have much in common. The truth was that they really didn’t, but they got along well anyway, which was fairly miraculous for Beau, who wasn’t known for getting along well with people.

It had started with Caduceus offering to help make Beau’s smoothies taste better.

“You know, some lemongrass and spearmint would go great in that,” he’d commented, watching throw a peach in the blender, skin and all (after tearing it open with her hands to remove the pit, of course; she wasn’t a complete bastard).

She’d just glared at him, not in the mood to talk to anyone this early in the morning and also not awake enough to realize that it was probably rude to glare at your tenants.

Seemingly unperturbed, he’d just silently laid two small bundles of herbs on the counter next to her. Like, actual fresh herbs that looked like they’d been picked from a garden recently. She had no idea how he’d gotten them out so fast.

She did try putting a little of each one in her smoothie, and to her surprise, it was actually very good; this was the first time she’d genuinely enjoyed one of her protein smoothies, and also, coincidentally, the first time she realized that she hadn’t been genuinely enjoying them before. She had just been surviving on them, she supposed.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Caduceus smiling a little as he ate his oatmeal and pointedly didn’t look directly at her.

The next morning he offered her dried cranberries when he saw her tossing sliced apples into the blender. The morning after that it was fennel, prompted by the sight of her peeling mandarin oranges. The next day he offered her strawberry leaves and lavender essence, which he insisted would taste good after she stared at him dubiously. And so it went on.

They didn’t exactly talk much, at first, because Beau wasn’t a huge talker and Caduceus seemed comfortable with silence. But after a while she got curious enough to ask him about all his ingredients, and she started to learn a few things about different herbs and edible plants, and also about his gardening and tea-making in general. He was a rather interesting person, she was forced to admit. She also appreciated that he didn’t seem to mind her abrasive personality; he didn’t necessarily like it, per se, but it also didn’t really bother him as far as she could tell, and that was fairly new for her. It was like he could see right through her exterior and all her mannerisms to the person she really was, and he didn’t have any qualms with that person, even though she was constantly enclosed in a facade of grumpiness.

He didn’t seem to have any facade of his own. He just existed very unapologetically and un-self-consciously as the person he was. It was like he didn’t even know how to project any other persona. Because of this quality, she felt like she could trust anything he said, because she knew somehow that it came from a place of earnest authenticity. When she asked him if she should replace the cabinet in the downstairs bathroom and he said that would probably be a good idea, she made a note on her phone to get it done this week. When she asked him whether she should wear her navy blazer or her gray one to her employee conference that evening and he said the navy would complement her eyes, she believed him. And when she asked if she should let Jester paint a mural in her room, he said that it would make Jester happy to do that and wasn’t that more rewarding than anything else?

It was, Beau reluctantly admitted, although she didn’t say that out loud.

Eventually she started thinking of him when she grocery shopped. He looked very pleased when she handed him the creamed honey he’d absent-mindedly mentioned the other day. “How thoughtful of you, Beau,” he beamed, eyes twinkling. “I haven’t had this since I moved here!”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get used to it or anything, it was on sale,” she grumbled. It hadn’t been on sale. It had actually been kind of expensive. But she figured that if she added up the value of all the ingredients he’d given her for her smoothies, they were probably worth way more than the price of the creamed honey.

As Caduceus had predicted, Jester was extremely happy when Beau texted her to let her know that she could start working on the mural whenever she wanted, as long as she didn’t go through Beau’s drawers and closet while Beau was at work. (Beau was fully aware that there was no preventing that, but she might as well try.)

Caduceus looked pretty happy too when Beau showed him Jester’s progress the next morning. Using the peach color as a base, she’d added streaks and glows of coral and tawny and lilac and other rosy tones to create the impression of a sunrise on the east-facing wall. It was the most beautiful piece of art Beau had ever seen, and she couldn’t believe she got to have it in her own room. Maybe eventually she would tell Jester that. Caduceus didn’t scream and jump around when he was happy like Jester did; he just kind of stood still and smiled in a way that made his whole face soften up.

“Do you think she’d do my room?” he asked Beau.

“Oh, I’m sure she’d be thrilled to,” Beau had replied. “Now, come on, I think your oatmeal’s gonna get cold.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Thank you so much to everyone who continued adding kudos and comments while I was gone, as well as to those who sent me asks on tumblr! I appreciate all the love this fic has been getting and I'm genuinely so honored that so many people are enjoying it. Now we're back to the regular schedule, so you can expect about one chapter per week or so <3

At some point Beau decided that it was kind of ridiculous that she had a crush on someone she’d never actually had a real conversation with. She wasn’t thirteen years old, for Christ’s sake. She just had to woman up and go talk to Yasha. It couldn’t be that hard, right? People talked to their crushes all the time! It was just a skill that she had to hone. All it involved was the bravery required to take the risk of being shunned by someone whose opinion mattered to you, and the wit required to say things that made sense while looking at a distractingly beautiful face.

It wasn’t like Beau wasn’t used to flirting. She’d had her fair share of one-night stands and drunken makeouts. But it was so much harder this time around, possibly because this time it felt like it actually mattered. By this point in her life, being gay was just an ingrained part of her identity and she didn’t actively think about it most of the time, and so she’d forgotten what it was like to be really, truly attracted to a woman: how powerful it felt, how affirming, how irrationally urgent. The yearning that weighed on her like muscle soreness, and how potently good and right the pressure felt. Being within Yasha’s sightline felt as dangerous as standing near a wildfire, but being away from her felt as impossible as living on thin ice. Having a crush was kind of the absolute worst, but she’d missed this emotional intensity, and all the hope and fear that came with it. She’d forgotten how imperative it felt that she kiss this woman as soon as possible, and how much the odds appeared to be stacked against her. This was how she’d realized she was gay; her “crushes” on boys had been nothing like this, had been nowhere near as terrible and wonderful and natural and unbearable all at the same time. With the other women she’d hooked up with, she’d simply thought they were pretty but hadn’t been particularly invested in them as individuals. This was something else. The stakes were so much higher, and it was so difficult to deal with.

She kept seeing Yasha in various places around the house but was still working up the nerve to engage with her. Usually she darted away before Yasha saw her, or simply nodded a greeting if they made eye contact before pretending that she had to go do something important in another room. But now she was steeling her resolve. If she didn’t have an actual conversation with her by the end of the week… well, there was no “if”, because she was definitely going to do it, no matter how scared she was.

Her opportunity presented itself in the laundry room one morning. Beau happened to be starting her laundry at the same time Yasha was moving hers into the dryer, and no one else was there. Yasha was dressed more casually than normal; perhaps she was still in her pajamas. Instead of her usual black button-down and black slacks, she wore a pair of black track pants and a dark gray sweater. Her hair looked damp, as if she’d just gotten out of the shower. This of course sent Beau’s stupid gay brain off on a train of thought about how lovely it would be if they were in a relationship, and whenever one of them took a shower they’d come out of the bathroom and snuggle. Or they’d take showers together. Beau tried her best to derail that particular train before it got any further.

Yasha hadn’t noticed Beau yet; she was busy retrieving a sock that had fallen out of the laundry basket.

“Hey, uh… hi.” Beau said. Stop saying “uh”, you dumbass! she scolded herself.

Yasha continued loading clothes into the dryer and didn’t respond. Oh god, she was wearing earphones. Beau mentally debated whether she should pretend she hadn’t said anything, or try to get Yasha’s attention, or possibly just turn around and high-tail it out of the room.

Before she could come to a decision, Yasha noticed her standing there and was so surprised she hit her head on the top of the dryer doorway. She let out a quiet groan of pain and rubbed the top of her head, pulling her earphones out with one hand.

“Oh my God, are you all right?” Beau rushed forward and knelt next to Yasha, inspecting her for any signs of serious injury.

Yasha, still bent over in front of the dryer, smiled ruefully up at Beau through her eyelashes. “Yes, I’m fine. There’s no need for worry.”

In her concern for Yasha’s safety, Beau had forgotten how nervous Yasha made her, but now she was remembering. Why did she have to kneel so close to her? She could see her skin way too well. Yasha’s skin wasn’t perfect, but somehow that made her even more attractive, because now it was undeniable that she was a real person and not just a concept. “Uh, well… I’m glad you’re okay. I can get you some ice if you need,” she said.

Yasha straightened her back, and now Beau was also remembering that Yasha was taller than her, which didn’t help the nerves at all. God, where was the conversation supposed to go from here? What the hell could she say next? It was now or never! She had to figure out something to say, and fast.

Yasha stood as she placed the last few clothing items in the dryer, pressing a couple of buttons to start the machine. “Well-” she began.

“I hate eating lunch alone!” Beau blurted.

Yasha stared at her, clearly unsure where this was coming from or how she was supposed to respond. “Um… yes.”

Think fast, Lionett, Beau’s gay brain admonished her. She sort of had a plan for what she was trying to communicate, but the words weren’t coming out in the right order, and also maybe they weren’t the right words anyway.

“Yeah,” Beau said, trying not to sound too panicky. “Uh… do you hate eating lunch alone?”

Yasha thought about it for a moment. “I don’t really mind it,” she replied. “But I understand why it might be unpleasant for some,” she added, clearly trying to be empathetic.

This wasn’t exactly going perfectly, but Beau hadn’t totally fucked up yet. Things were still salvageable.

“Well, uh… would you want to, like, help me out? By eating lunch with me today? So I don’t have to eat it alone? If you have the time, I mean. Like no pressure… I’m sure that, uh, I could find somebody else. But you’re, like, here right now. And I just hate eating lunch alone. I know I already said, that, fuck. Uh, just-”

Yasha interrupted her. “I’d be happy to,” she said gently, with a little smile on her face. A very cute little smile.

Beau’s internal organs all flipped upside down at the exact same time. “Uh, you…. You, uh, would?”

“I would.”

“Well… thank you.” Really, thank you? That’s your response, Lionett?

Yasha smiled wider. She was so pretty when she smiled, Beau couldn’t look directly at her. “Should I come and knock on your door at lunchtime so we can eat together?”

Was this really happening? “Uh, yeah. That would be sick. Let’s do it.”

Yasha nodded and smiled at her again, and walked out of the room with her empty laundry basket. Beau waited a moment or two for her to start climbing the stairs, and then did an extremely embarrassing touchdown dance alone in the laundry room.

“That wasn’t bad, except for the part where you slipped on the linoleum and almost ate shit like two seconds ago,” said a scratchy voice from out of nowhere.  
Beau startled so hard she almost ate shit on the linoleum again.

“Why are you always in here?” Beau sighed in exasperation as Nott emerged from behind a washing machine.

“This time I was gonna try to scare you. Apparently it worked,” she grinned. “I also got to witness… whatever all that was.”

“Shut up, you little freak,” Beau grumbled.

“Hey, you actually talked to her! And you kind of sounded normal! Well, not really, but you were better than you usually are around her.”

“Okay, I didn’t ask for a goddamn critique.”

“You didn’t need to! I provide the service automatically - Hey, put me down!” Nott giggled as Beau picked her up and slung her fireman-style over one shoulder.

“I’ve had enough of you,” Beau said, “I’m bringing you back up to the attic where you belong.”

“Nooooooo, don’t take me there, Caleb will make me do my homework!”

“Sucks for you,” Beau sang as she climbed upstairs.


	22. Chapter 22

Yasha was nervous that she would have nothing interesting to say to Beau at lunch, given that English wasn’t her first language so it was hard for her to come up with eloquent phrases, and she didn’t consider herself a very interesting person to begin with so she imagined that even if they were speaking in Russian, Beau wouldn’t find her conversation particularly scintillating. But the surprising thing was that Beau seemed deeply interested in what she had to say, which was a somewhat new feeling for Yasha. Yasha was a quieter sort of person so she was used to saying things that nobody heard or paid attention to, especially if there was more than one other person present. She was also used to having to work to earn the attention that she did receive. Jester was the only person she regularly spoke to these days, and she was a very sweet person who happened to be very distractable, so when Yasha tried to share something with her, it had to be exciting in order to ensure that Jester would catch all of it. After Molly started hanging out with them, Jester and Molly would often end up talking to each other about things that they both enjoyed. Yasha was too hesitant and soft-spoken to interject, and when she did try to add something, it was typically too quiet or inconsequential to warrant much of a response. It wasn’t that Molly and Jester didn’t like her or didn’t want her around; they were just louder and more vibrant than she was, and she faded in their presence.

She didn’t feel that way with Beau, though. Beau listened aptly to everything she said, even if it was boring or insubstantial. When she mentioned that she was reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Beau asked her to tell her what it was about, and she appeared to be sincerely invested in Yasha’s response. It was a strange and wonderful feeling to have a captive audience. Yasha even felt comfortable talking about herself, which was unusual for her. She told Beau, for example, that she liked to listen to music while working out, which was something that she didn’t think anybody knew about her, except Jester because she’d witnessed it and probably Molly because Yasha imagined Jester would have told him. And then Beau confided that she also liked to listen to music while working out, and even though it was a very minor thing to have in common with someone, it felt monumental to Yasha. Maybe because she revealed so little of herself to the world, each piece felt important when it was validated by someone else.

“What type of music do you like?” Beau asked as she drizzled more balsamic vinaigrette on her salad. Beau had made the salad herself, enlisting Yasha’s help in retrieving ingredients from the pantry. Beau had a surprisingly good sense of which vegetables and herbs and seasonings went well together, which Yasha hadn’t expected, since Beau didn’t seem like the type of person to know a lot about plants.

Yasha thought for a moment about what to say. Another nice thing about Beau was that she didn’t seem to mind that Yasha usually paused before responding so she could weigh her words. Jester and Molly didn’t mind either, but a lot of people took Yasha’s initial silence as an indication that they could continue speaking, which was one of the reasons Yasha didn’t talk very much in general.

She was generally wary of telling people about the things she liked, because she felt it had the potential to demonstrate what kind of person she was and invite people to draw conclusions about that person, and she was wary of not having control over what those conclusions were. Music, especially, was delicate, because she worried that if other people didn’t like the music she liked, they might think there was something wrong with her for liking it. In America especially, music was considered such a powerful indicator of the self.

On the other hand, up until this point, Beau had been very gracious and welcoming of Yasha, even seeming excited about who she was and what she liked. She decided to just go for it.

“I don’t listen to very many songs,” she said. “I usually only have a few favorites at any time, and it takes me a few listens to decide if I like it. But when I do like it, I listen to it over and over again.”

Beau smiled as if this were an admirable quality in a person. “What are some of your favorites right now?”

“Well, I have one that is my current favorite, and another which may soon become a favorite.”

Beau smiled again and nodded, encouraging her to go on. This was another new thing; people didn’t often prompt Yasha to continue speaking.

She cleared her throat, a little nervous. “Ah, well, my current favorite is ‘I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song’ by Jim Croce. And my upcoming favorite is ‘Reality’ by Vladimir Cosma. I like the old hits,” Yasha clarified. “I don’t know very much new music, but I used to listen to the radio a lot back in Russia, and they would play the classics.”

Beau took out her phone. “Hang on, I’m writing those down. ‘Reality,’ you said?”

Yasha nodded. She wondered if Beau was actually going to listen to them; it would be nice if she did.

Beau finished typing and put her phone away. “You’re from Russia?” she asked.

“Da,” Yasha answered playfully.

Beau grinned. “That’s so cool, I didn’t know that. How long have you been in the U.S.?”

“Only a few years. I’m still getting used to it. I feel like I don’t belong; I look so different from the locals.”

Beau looked at her appraisingly. “You do look different,” she said. “But it’s a good different. A very good different.”

Yasha felt very vulnerable just then, as though Beau was looking at her and seeing every part of her. It wasn’t necessarily a bad feeling, just… new. It was difficult to maintain eye contact. Beau’s eyes were so blue. In the past she’d spoken so haltingly, but now that they were eating lunch together, Beau was uncharacteristically articulate, and it was rather disarming. Yasha looked down at her lap. “Thank you,” she said softly, hoping that was the right response.

“Hey. Look at me,” Beau said.

Yasha looked at her.

Beau smiled. “There’s nothing wrong with looking different, okay? I look pretty different, especially back in Albuquerque when my hair was even shorter. You belong wherever you are, and if anyone makes you feel like you don’t, I’ll fuck ‘em up, okay? I’m a martial arts teacher so I can do that.” She mimed punching someone in the face repeatedly, and Yasha couldn’t help but laugh, which seemed to delight Beau.

They continued on talking about various things until Jester summoned Yasha to accompany her to her afternoon class. For the rest of the day Yasha couldn’t stop thinking about how pretty Beau’s smile was, and how safe and seen she made her feel.


	23. Chapter 23

Halloween.  
Oskar Fjordssen   
Oct 20, 2019, 11:35 PM (12 hours ago)

To: You and 6 others

Hey guys reminder of Halloween party this friday at 7 bring snaks and booze.

Thx. Fjord.

Sent from my iPhone 4

RE: Halloween.  
Jester Lavorre   
Oct 21, 2019, 11:47 AM (5 minutes ago)

To: Fjord and 6 others

Hehe, BOOze!!!! [ghost emoji]


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends! Couple things about this chapter:  
> \- there are a few words in Navajo language and references to the Navajo Nation, but I myself am not Navajo, so I apologize if there are any inaccuracies and please do correct me!  
> \- a significant part of this chapter also takes place at high school and references feeling depressed/isolated and experiencing dissociation, and there are also mentions of the past death of a parent! It's all very brief and non-detailed, but if you'd rather just avoid those topics entirely, I'll include a summary of the chapter in the end notes :)
> 
> Once again, thank you SO MUCH for all the love this fic has gotten. I read every single one of your comments and they all make my heart sing <3

When Nott had first started high school, she’d hated it so much that every day felt interminably long, each hour seeming to last months. She would come home feeling like she’d aged significantly since leaving the apartment that morning. That phase wasn’t sustainable, of course. She still hated high school the exact same amount, make no mistake, but now it passed in a series of snapshots, like the world’s most boring slide show. One minute she was arriving on campus, and then time would pass (presumably) and she would be at lunch, and then the screen would click to the next snapshot and she’d be in math class.

Today had been just like any other.

Slide 1. 6:13 AM. “Get up, Nott.” Caleb grumble-yelled at her from across the dark attic.

“Aren’t you getting up, asshole?” She grumble-yelled back at him from within her pillow nest.

“Hey, language. And no, I have a headache. Take yourself to school.”

“Wow, I’m really feelin’ the brotherly love,” she groaned sarcastically as she rolled off her bed and onto the hard floor, which was slightly painful, but it was her routine at this point and it hardly bothered her anymore. She groped around for her phone so she could shut off the alarm that had been beeping for the last couple minutes, and try to find a clean hoodie in the detritus of clothing scattered around.

Slide 2. 6:54 AM. Yet another person jostled her on the metro because she was so short that they didn’t realize she was there. She gave the man her best death glare, and he inched away slightly, leaving her to play Hogwarts Mystery on her phone in peace.

Slide 3. 7:07 AM. “Tardy again, Miss Brave,” her English teacher drawled as she dropped into her seat (the one closest to the door, because this happened a lot). He walked over and handed her a detention slip. She waited until he’d turned back towards his desk to subtly put the slip in the slightly open backpack of the boy next to her, who appeared to be slumped over comatose on his notebook.

Slide 4. 9:26 AM. “Hey Nott, how are you doing today?” Her chemistry lab partner asked brightly as he pulled two pairs of goggles out of the drawer. She just stared at him appraisingly, trying to decide whether he actually wanted to know the answer or had some ulterior motive, and whether she cared enough to respond at all either way.

“Fine, I guess,” she said, only after pausing long enough to make him look mildly uncomfortable. His name was Yeza, and he had a mop of brown curls and wore colorful braces and a lot of science-themed graphic tees, and they had two classes together that semester but weren’t exactly friends, per se. School was like that; there were people you liked, and people you didn’t like, and a whole lot of people you were kind of aware of but never deliberately sought to interact with.

She generally didn’t pay attention to Yeza except in chemistry class, where he always seemed to want to have a conversation with her but never really seemed to have a clue what they could talk about.

“Did you see any cool movies this weekend?” he asked.

She thought about it. Had she? “I watched a video about soil acidity,” she said. She had watched that. For personal research purposes.

He looked a little lost. “Oh, uh, cool. Do you like… soil?”

She shrugged. “Kind of? I would never eat it, though.”

He laughed, even though she hadn’t made a joke. “Do you like soil?” she asked him.

“Yeah, I love eating it,” he said, smiling as though they were sharing a fun secret.

She wrinkled her nose. “Really? It doesn’t taste very good, but to each their own, I guess.”

He chuckled and didn’t answer. Weird guy. Soil objectively tasted bad, even when you put salt in it. Even Caleb agreed; one time she’d switched out his instant coffee with dirt to see if he’d notice (he had).

Slide 5. 10:43 AM. She didn’t have a favorite part of her school day, but if she were forced to pick a part she loathed the least, it was probably art class. She didn’t enjoy drawing particularly but she didn’t want to sing or act or learn an instrument, so that left Art 1. All the actual teen artists had skipped ahead to Art 2 or 3 in their freshman year, and so her class was populated mostly by delinquents and stoners who lacked the energy to be theater kids, the talent to be real art kids, or the self-discipline-bordering-on-masochism to join one of the school’s competitive and life-consuming music programs. Nott’s eyes were subjected to a lot of sharpie renderings of penises during this hour, but she also found most of her customers from among this crowd, so she couldn’t complain too much.

The school had two art teachers, one of whom loved giving structured assignments and one of whom loved kicking back at her desk and reading online tabloids while the students “expressed their creativity” by raiding the supply closet and using the contents for whatever purposes they chose. More often than not, the contents they raided were the button machine, the jewelry-making kit, and the bins of colorful beads, and their purposes were to make handcrafted accessories with lewd sayings and images on them.

Nott had slightly more class than that, though. The other kids usually got to all the shiniest and most interesting beads before she could look at them, but nobody else was ever really interested in the buttons, so she’d taken to grabbing the button jar and setting up shop at the corner table. She’d hot-glued buttons to the plastic accordion file where she kept all the paper handouts that she hadn’t glanced at for at least a month, and she’d inexpertly stitched buttons onto the outer pocket of her thrift-store backpack, and now she was working on her most ambitious project yet: a button necklace. After a considerable period of trial and error, she’d even found a way to thread the buttons onto the string so that they lay flat and faced outward, instead of hanging sideways like clothes on a rack. She figured if this went well, she could try button earrings next, although that would require piercing her ears. Maybe Caleb could be convinced to let her do it if she’d already put in the time to make earrings.

Slide 6. 12: 35 PM. Nott usually ate her lunch in the bathroom on the third floor of the arts building. It was technically still an area where students were allowed to be during lunchtime, but no one was ever there, so she didn’t have to worry about running into other people. And it was way simpler than picking a table to sit at. Who would she sit with, anyway? She was too weird to fit in with the cool kids, and her grades were too bad to fit in with the nerds. She didn’t belong to any activities like band or theater, and her “look” wasn’t adequate for any of the aesthetic-based groups like the scene kids or the hipsters. She hadn’t made any friends in freshman year, so she couldn’t sit with an established friend group. She could probably sit with her stoner clientele if she really wanted to, but even there she felt like the odd one out, because she was small and looked different from everybody else and didn’t date or skate or listen to grunge bands.

As she sat on the bathroom counter eating her turkey sandwich (the same lunch she’d had every day for the last three weeks), she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Long, straggly black hair. Huge, owlish eyes. Blemished brown skin. A massive, loose T-shirt with a stain that had seemed way less noticeable that morning. She looked away.

The thing about slideshows was that most photos displayed the subject from a third-person viewpoint; you were meant to think about the thing in the frame, not whoever was behind the camera. Nott sometimes felt like she was the thing in the frame and not the person behind the camera. She was so aware of her body that it was like she was looking at it from the outside; throughout the day, she watched a montage of herself doing different things and observed her knobbly legs and her crooked teeth and the holes in her hand-me-down jeans. At least jeans with holes in them were fashionable these days; she couldn’t say the same for the teeth and the legs.

She wished she could stop seeing herself from the outside, but that was impossible most days, and so she compromised by limiting other people’s ability to see her from the outside. She spent lunchtime in the bathroom, where no one could observe her except herself.

Slide 7. 2:13 PM. Nott sat on the bleachers facing the track, swinging her legs back and forth as she waited for somebody from math class to show up and pay her for a gram. Usually she spent her money as she made it, using it for games and snacks and whatever else she wanted but Caleb wasn’t willing to include in their budget because he considered it inessential. Right now, though, she was saving up, because she’d thought of a cool idea for a Halloween costume and it required at least one trip to a thrift store. She was fairly excited to actually be going to a Halloween event this year; she and Caleb usually just spent the holiday pirating a horror movie and maybe lighting a candle or two to make things more atmospheric. She hadn’t trick-or-treated since before her mom had passed away; Caleb and her step-dad didn’t really understand the custom because they weren’t American, and she’d had too much going on in her head to explain it to them and insist on doing it.

Nott usually didn’t think much about her mom; she hadn’t really been the nicest mom, at least as far as she could remember. It had also been a really long time ago, at least in comparison to the total number of years Nott had been alive. She sometimes wondered, though, what it would be like to have a mom. If it would make her feel less like an outlier, an isolated anomaly that had appeared out of nowhere and could disappear equally quickly.

“Hey, you got the stuff?” said a voice to her left. It was nice to get paid, at any rate.

Getting home felt like the end of the slideshow. Life was only real when she wasn’t at school. Maybe that was why it was so hard to motivate herself to do her homework. It was like waking up from a bizarre and upsetting dream and proceeding to replicate the activities you’d been doing in the dream; it just didn’t make much sense.

She unlocked the front door and headed towards the stairs to the attic. She had homework today, theoretically, but she was more interested in an idea she’d come up with during math class that afternoon, which was to watch a movie and count the number of times the camera angle changed. It was bound to be a really high number, which Caleb might find interesting; he loved numbers. She was thinking a horror movie would be nice; it was October, after all.

The house was mostly quiet, but she could hear someone talking on the phone in the kitchen. It took her a moment to realize that first of all, the person wasn’t speaking English, and second, she could understand parts of what the person was saying if she actually paid attention. That was weird. The only other languages she knew even a little bit were German and Navajo, and she hadn’t heard anyone speaking Navajo out loud since before her mom had passed. She was really rusty from lack of use, but there were a few words and phrases that had apparently been sitting in the back of her brain like old tchotchkes for the last eight years.

Carefully, she peered into the kitchen and saw Beau leaning against the counter, phone cradled against one ear while she used her other hand to stir a salad. She couldn’t follow most of what Beau was talking about but she did understand that it was her mother on the other end of the call. Shimá: that was a word she’d used fairly regularly when she was very little. Nott strained her ears. Beau clearly used the language more often than she did because her speech had a fast-paced, confident, natural quality to it, and she mumbled through some words because she’d evidently used them so frequently that she wasn’t worried her meaning would be lost. But Nott felt a surge of pride that she could occasionally catch simple words like pieces of paper blowing in the wind: home, cousin, dog, work, eat.

After a few minutes, Beau said goodbye to her mother and hung up the call. She set her phone down on the counter and put her face in her hands. Nott wasn’t sure what to do; she wanted to ask about the fact that Beau spoke Navajo, but it also looked like Beau was having a capital-M Moment. She was just about to give up and sneak upstairs when Beau looked up and noticed her.

“What do you want, punk?” she growled. Nott knew her well enough at this point to realize that she was trying to be friendly.

“Yá'át'ééh,” Nott said. It was just a very basic greeting; she wanted to say something more thought-provoking, but she hadn’t spoken the language for eight years, and she’d also been a child when she stopped speaking it regularly, so her vocabulary left much to be desired.

Beau looked surprised for a moment, and then smiled slightly. “Could you understand everything I was saying?”

Nott briefly considered lying and saying she had, but then it occurred to her that that was probably not a very sustainable lie. “No,” she admitted. “Just bits and pieces.”

Beau nodded, looking somewhat relieved. “Just an obligatory call from my mom, theoretically to check in on me but actually to guilt me into moving home.”

“You don’t want to move back home?” Nott asked. She didn’t want to pry, but she couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to return home if they had a home to return to.

Beau’s expression was complicated. “Nah. She still lives in the tiny-ass town where I grew up, with all the relatives and family friends I fucking hate. Well, maybe that’s too strong,” she said, noting Nott’s raised eyebrow. “I just… I left and moved to Albuquerque when I was nineteen, and I never looked back. I just never… fit. And then shit went down in Albuquerque so I ran away from there, too.”

She stopped. “Care to elaborate?” Nott asked.

“Nosy little shit, aren’t you?” Beau groused. She didn’t sound angry. “I’ll tell you my whole life story one of these days. Just not today. I’m too fucking drained from work,” she groaned.

“Aoo',” Nott agreed.

Beau chuckled. “Man, you really don’t speak much, do you? Where’d you learn?”

“My mom,” Nott said. It was odd, because she didn’t usually consider her mother to be a sore subject, but now that there was a rare opportunity to talk about her, it felt like that part of her brain was padlocked shut. There was nothing else she was able to say out loud.

Beau’s blue eyes looked right through her, as if they could see the padlock. “Did you grow up on the rez?” she asked, referring to the tract of land allocated to the Diné people in the nineteenth century.

Nott shook her head. “No. I think my mom did, though.” She didn’t really know. She’d been too little to ask her mom anything that really mattered, and now the only person who might know was her stepdad, and she hadn’t had a real conversation with him in what felt like ages. They’d certainly never talked about anything as profound as her mother’s life background. Maybe he didn’t even know; sometimes things like that just never came up, even when you spent a lot of time with someone. It had taken her forever to notice that Caleb was bi and not gay, but to be fair, he would’ve just told her if she’d thought to ask.

“That’s where my mom lives now,” Beau said. And then they just looked at each other for what felt like a really long time, as if they suddenly understood a whole lot of things about each other that were impossible to express verbally.

Finally Beau smiled at her, which struck Nott as strange because, she realized, Beau never really smiled sincerely very often, and this smile was disarmingly sincere. “What are your plans for the afternoon, kid?” she asked, and she sounded like she actually wanted to know the answer, which made Nott feel comfortable being honest.

“I was gonna watch a horror movie and count the shot changes.”

Beau let out a surprised laugh, and then she looked thoughtful. “Hey, you know, that actually sounds kind of interesting,” she said. “What if you count the shot changes, and I count how many times each character speaks?”

Nott scowled. “Uh, no way, your number is gonna be way lower!”

“I know, I wanna pay attention to the movie! I like horror movies! This was your idea, anyway, so you should have the harder job,” Beau wheedled.

“Yeah, but you’re an adult, and I’m a child!”

“Only physically,” Beau said archly.

“What the hell does that mean?” Nott tried to punch Beau in the arm, but she wasn’t tall enough and ended up punching her in the ribcage, eliciting an indignant “Hey!”

And so they watched the movie together, and collected their data, and later invited Caleb to eat dinner with them so they could show him their findings. He was mostly confused because he didn’t understand what they were trying to prove, and then they both started laughing uproariously because they realized they’d forgotten to come up with a hypothesis, and Caleb just looked on with a mixture of exasperation and amusement over their three bowls of instant jambalaya. And Nott didn’t see herself from the outside at all; she was inside herself the whole evening. And she didn’t feel like an outlier or an anomaly, either. She just felt safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter summary: Nott goes through a day of high school. She's late to first period, chats with her lab partner Yeza in chemistry, works on a button necklace in art class, eats in the bathroom at lunch, and sells some weed to a classmate after school. She thinks about how she doesn't fit in with the other kids at school, and how school doesn't feel quite real to her. When she gets home, she encounters Beau having a phone conversation in Navajo, which surprises her because she understands the language but hasn't heard anyone speak it since before her mother passed. She and Beau chat a little bit, bond, and end up watching a movie together and having dinner with Caleb.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to every single person who's taken the time to leave a comment, give kudos, or send me an ask on tumblr! I love and appreciate all of you very much!

Caduceus hadn’t grown up with his younger brother Mollymauk, but after having been roommates for nearly two months, he’d picked up on quite a few of Molly’s mannerisms. When he was anxious about school, he lay on his back on his bed with his legs propped up on the wall. When he was feeling bored, he went out and bought new makeup and insisted on “letting” Caduceus try it on. (Caduceus wasn’t much of a makeup wearer, but he understood that there was something comforting to Molly about sharing his things with other people.) When Molly was in a good mood he drank white wine and when he felt sad he drank red. And when his mind was on something (or someone) for a long period of time, he forgot to retouch his roots. These days they were growing in inky black beneath his mop of lilac curls.

“Oh lord, I’m such a mess,” Molly exclaimed as he rummaged through the pile of quirky-looking clothes that obscured his entire half of the floor. They were about evenly mixed between secondhand and designer items (occasionally both) and Molly’s taste was so eclectic that Caduceus couldn’t tell the difference. Then again, he didn’t really have an eye for such things anyway. He smoothly dodged a windbreaker that Molly had accidentally sent flying across the room.

“What are you looking for?” Caduceus asked placidly. He’d been in the process of tidying up his altar before Molly had come home from his class, almost literally thrown himself into the room, and begun frantically digging through his belongings while loudly complaining about his own inability to put away his laundry. Patchouli incense still wafted through the air.

Molly moaned dramatically. “An outfit that isn’t terrible!”

Caduceus was confused. “Are any of your outfits terrible?” Molly owned a lot of clothes, more than he was even able to wear over the course of a month. Caduceus couldn’t imagine why he would buy anything that he didn’t like. However, Caduceus himself wore the same pair of pants and the same two sweaters more often than not, so there were a lot of aspects of his brother’s wardrobe which were fairly unimaginable to him.

Molly flopped over onto his unmade bed, causing more than one bedazzled mini-barrette to fall out of his hair and disappear into the rumpled paisley duvet. He sighed heavily.

Caduceus debated whether to ask him what was going on. He realized eventually that Molly was probably just going to tell him anyway, and he might as well not waste words. Crossing his legs as he sat on his stool, he went back to calmly placing his crystals and stones in an aesthetically pleasing grid in the shape of a five-pointed star. He should really get some more from the occult store in the next neighborhood; most of these were pink and green, and they were really better suited to springtime than to the current season. He just had such a fondness for rose quartz and green aventurine and could never seem to get enough of them. They brought such pleasant dreamy energy to the room.

Sure enough, about a minute later, Molly cleared his throat. Caduceus turned back around and looked at him, raising his eyebrows to show that he was open to hearing about whatever-it-was.

“So, there’s this guy,” Molly began.

Ah. Caduceus should’ve figured. He gave a wry glance to the potted ferns sitting on the windowsill next to him, hoping they wouldn’t think him silly for missing something so obvious.

“And we sometimes ride the metro to class together and every now and then we’ll meet up to study or eat meals together, but today he asked me if I want to go for a walk to the park with him! That sounds like a date, doesn’t it? I mean, he didn’t say it was a date, but it sure sounds like it, at least more than the other things we’ve done together. We’re supposed to be meeting in the foyer in ten minutes, but I have nothing to wear! Oh God, Caduceus, what do I do? I don’t even have time to re-do my nails, look, they’re all chipped!” Molly sat up and waved his hands frantically at Caduceus.

Caduceus looked at what Molly was wearing now; it was a fairly standard Mollymauk outfit of emerald velvet pants, heeled and pointy-toed metallic-gold faux leather boots, a black mesh high-collared t-shirt with an elegant crocheted diamond pattern and a simple black tank top underneath, and at least five pounds of gold jewelry he’d probably found at an antique store. He usually didn’t put on a lot of makeup when he was in a rush to get to class in the morning, and this had been one of those mornings; as far as Caduceus could tell, he was only wearing light concealer, subtle brow pencil, and a little mascara, which was slightly smudged under his eyes since he’d been hurrying around all day. Caduceus stepped forward and gently rubbed a thumb under each of his eyes to clean it away. Molly’s distraught expression melted a little as he quirked a smile and peered up at Caduceus through his lashes.

“Is he the sort of man who expects you to look beautiful?” Caduceus asked.

Molly shook his head. “No, he really isn’t, and I should remember that.”

“He’s in for a surprise, then,” said Caduceus. “Because you look very beautiful right now.”

Molly’s face bloomed with surprised laughter. He nervously tucked a lock of hair behind his jewel-studded ear. “Do you really think so?”

Caduceus sometimes felt that his understanding of beauty was different from other people’s. It was more holistic, perhaps. He didn’t think the faces he saw emblazoned on billboards around the city were very beautiful, because they were just faces, with eyes and noses and mouths like every other face. When he looked at Molly, he saw Molly’s soul, and it was one of the most brilliant souls he’d ever been lucky enough to encounter. With this awareness, it was impossible for him to conceive of ever looking at Molly’s face and thinking it wasn’t radiant, because his soul shone through it like sun behind seaglass. Caduceus smiled and nodded, picking up one of the fallen hair clips from the bed and replacing it on the side of Molly’s head.

“You’re a pretty good brother, Clay,” Molly mumbled bashfully.

Caduceus shrugged. “There’s nothing to be praised about doing what any brother should,” he said. “Now, you should go meet your man. I have a feeling he’s early and waiting for you.”

Molly peered up at the ceiling, for some reason. “You may be right,” he said. “I’ll go up there right now. See you later, Cad! Or maybe I won’t,” he winked. Caduceus didn’t know what the wink meant, but he understood that this was the sort of thing he was supposed to laugh at.

After Molly had vanished upstairs in a waft of bergamot perfume, Caduceus turned back to his altar. He had originally been planning on just doing a simple meditation, but now he felt inclined to do a love spell on his brother’s behalf. He hadn’t done one of those in what felt like forever, but it appeared that now was the time. Luckily, he happened to have some rose essence and dried lavender on hand. “Will you lend me your energy?” he asked, turning to his purple and white potted orchids. “I have a feeling Molly won’t need much help because he’s very charming, but I really want him to have a happy experience, because he deserves it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple things:  
> \- if you're following along in the narrative timeline you'll notice that their halloween house event is coming up! Let me know if you have ideas for what you think their costumes should be <3 (I'm thinking of having Molly and Jester dress up as devils but maybe that's too cliche...)  
> \- Somewhere in this fic, I'm trying to devote at least one chapter each to every possible pair of characters (some of the ones I haven't gotten to yet are Fjord and Nott, Molly and Beau, Caduceus and Caleb, etc) but I don't really have a particular order in mind, so feel free to request to have your favorite duo be featured sooner :)


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little late, but it's longer than average to make up for it!
> 
> I say this every time but thank you so much for the lovely kudos, comments, and asks! It means so much to me every time someone tells me that they read this story to help them deal with anxiety or get through a rough patch they're currently in - I'm truly honored that I'm able to help people in that way. If that's you, just know I love you, even if I don't know who you are :)
> 
> Also, content warning: the beginning of this chapter includes references to past drug use/abuse, past experiences with homophobia/biphobia and racism, and descriptions of mild depressive behavior. It's all brief and not too heavy, but if you'd rather just skip those topics completely, you can jump ahead to the line "At first he thought there was no one there"

Fjord had been having an exhausting couple of days.

It had all started when he’d decided to log into his old Facebook account just to see what was going on. Due, no doubt, to a combination of corporate greed and deep-seated political corruption, deleting one’s Facebook account was an extremely convoluted and ludicrously difficult process, so Fjord still had a presence somewhere in the bowels of the online platform. He’d lost both his phone and computer (on separate occasions) around the time he’d dropped out of undergrad and things really started going downhill for him, and even after he’d regained his access to the grid, he’d already fallen out of the habit of routinely checking his social media - Facebook, especially, was hard, because it was still populated by so-called friends he no longer associated with and practically-vintage photos of a person who was ostensibly him. There were too many unhappy memories encoded in those long-deceased message threads and years-old birthday wishes.

Every now and then when he had some spare time and was in a productive mood, he resolved himself to the emotionally Herculean task of going back into his account and deleting all the remnants of what now felt like an ephemeral past life. If he couldn’t delete the account itself, he figured, he might as well hollow it out until it was barely recognizable. One such endeavour in recent days had led him to discover that he was still a member of the online social group for his old fraternity (because he was an “alumnus” even though he’d never donated a cent), which led to him to the following discovery that his former “twin” (a piece of frat terminology which had never made much sense to him) had come out as gay and posted a sunshine-blasted photo of himself with his new fiance on a sparkling beach in some tiny nation-state with a tourism-driven economy. This, of course, led him down - not so much Memory Lane, but perhaps Memory Vortex. Memory Labyrinth (feat. David Bowie). Memory Funhouse, of the kind with lots of warped mirrors and spooky lighting and clowns hiding around corners.

Shaking a sun-warmed hand during a rush event. Dropping his bags on the bottom bunk of his new room as dust motes swirled in beams of afternoon light. A white-toothed smile he couldn’t tear his eyes away from. Shuffling through a drunk and sweaty crowd in a dark living room, listening over the din of laughter and EDM for the sound of a familiar voice. Texas-tanned muscles flexing in the campus gym at 5am. A charged conversation - the exact words of which had long since faded in a haze of cannabis and Four Loko, but the hazel eyes flicking up to meet his, the tension in the November air - he couldn’t forget that. His heart had started pounding and didn’t stop for months. It pounded as they made out in bathroom stalls, made out in the backseat of a parked Range Rover, made out in the frat house kitchen as the sun rose and their “brothers” slept. Kept pounding during “brotherly” jokes that edged too close to the truth, offhand comments about settling down with a wife someday, not-quite humorous remarks about whether a Southern royalty trophy-wife mom would be more scandalized by Fjord’s gender or his race. Staring at his reflection in a dingy mirror as purple and yellow bloomed around his left eye. Blinking up at his reflection in a different dingy mirror as he inhaled white powder and his “brothers” cheered. Catching his reflection as his phone screen went dark after receiving that final text.

And at that point he felt like he was watching a movie about a man hurtling towards rock bottom. He didn’t remember most of what he’d done and said during those months, which was probably thanks to the drugs. He didn’t remember, for example, the exact process of how he’d dropped out, but he did remember that at one point he was in college and flunking most of his classes and at another point he was carrying boxes into an apartment he definitely couldn’t afford. Things came back in flashes - going to rehab, quitting rehab because he couldn’t do it, crying for the first time since he was a kid and slamming the flat of his hand against the steering wheel of the car he wouldn’t own for much longer. Going back to rehab a little later. Becoming a lifeguard. Buying a guava at the grocery store even though he’d never had guava before, because recovery was about trying new things to prove you had a new lease on life, right?

Most of the time he felt like he reasonably had his shit together, but at times like this the past came back to haunt him like a vengeful ghost who was hell-bent on reminding him how much he disliked himself.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed - maybe just one day, maybe two or three or even four. He alternated between trying unsuccessfully to sleep and distracting himself by binge-watching old episodes of Bones (Agent Booth reminded him of the kind of man he’d once imagined himself becoming). He called in sick to work, but because he was the sort of person who worried someone might find out he wasn’t actually sick with anything, he stopped taking his multivitamin supplements because the lack of Vitamin C might actually weaken his immune system. That sounded like something that could happen, right? He hadn’t been a STEM major but he did remember watching Bill Nye the Science Guy in middle school.

Eventually someone knocked on his door - it was probably Truth coming out of her well to shame Fjord-kind. He’d been wearing the same pair of sweatpants and the same hoodie for days, only changing his underwear when he remembered to (which was probably less often than he should be changing his underwear); he’d probably spent over 90% of his time in his bed, only getting up to use the bathroom and to sneak into the kitchen to grab snacks and hoard them in his desk drawer; his phone had died a long time ago and he hadn’t charged it, and his mouth tasted like morning breath even though it was probably afternoon, if the angle of the light filtering through his blinds was anything to go by.

Begrudgingly, he closed his laptop. He’d been planning on trying to take a nap after this episode, but it was unlikely that he’d fall asleep anyway, so maybe there wasn’t a point. He yawned, crawled out of bed at zombie speed, and padded over to the door.

At first he thought there was no one there and the person had gone away. Then he realized that the person was, in fact, there, and she was just very short. She gazed up at him, looking profoundly unimpressed with what she saw.

“Wow, you look like total shit,” she said, in a scratchy voice.

He frowned. She was right, objectively, but that was still a rude way to speak to your landlord, and he told her so.

She raised an eyebrow like she didn’t even care enough to pretend to care about his opinion. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding particularly sorry. “Okay so listen up, Fred-”

“Fjord,” he corrected her.

“Ferd?”

He sighed. “No, Fjooord. ‘Oh’ sound.”

“...Frode?”

He couldn’t tell if she was deliberately messing with him. He just sighed heavily and nodded. “Sure, whatever.”

“So, I’m Nott and I live in the attic, in case you didn’t know. I live with my brother, except he’s not here right now, and I need someone to go with me to buy my Halloween costume.”

Fjord nodded, wondering how this was at all relevant to him. The next episode of Bones was the season finale and he really wanted to watch it.

“So I called him and asked if I could go with Beau, and he said ‘Yeah,’” she continued. “Or, technically, he said ‘Ja’ but that’s because he’s German, and he totally knows how to say ‘Yeah’ the American way except he doesn’t because he probably thinks it’s ungrammarly or whatever because he’s kind of pretentious like that. I can say things like that about him because I love him unconditionally,” she said, glaring at Fjord as if she thought he was going to try and make disparaging remarks about her brother’s personality. “But the thing is, Beau’s not home, she’s still at work. And Jester and Yasha are in class, and I don’t even know the other two people who live here and to be honest I don’t trust them at all because one of them is living under an assumed identity and the other one is a witch or something and he could totally cast a hex on me or something if he wanted to.”

Fjord furrowed his brow, deciding he wasn’t even going to tackle the “assumed identity” thing. “Why would Caduceus cast a hex on you?”

“Listen, if you knew what I did with his French press, you’d probably want to hex me too.”

Fjord decided not to ask.

“So, what I’m saying is, I need you to take me shopping,” Nott finished, looking up at him expectantly.

“You need me to? Right now? Can’t you just wait until someone else gets home?”

Nott smirked, glancing past him at his messy unmade bed and the pile of snack wrappers on the floor around the trash can. “Oh, are you busy right now?” she asked sweetly.

Fjord glared. “Well, what if I don’t want to? You’ve been pretty rude to me, I don’t know if we have that kind of relationship.”

Quick as a flash, Nott pulled an ancient flip phone out of her sweatshirt pocket and snapped a photo of him. “If you don’t take me shopping, I’ll show Beau what you look like right now and she’ll make fun of you forever and ever.”

Fjord sighed and pointed at her. “You’re a little monster, you know that?”

“I know,” Nott said smugly. “Now, do you want to clean yourself up before we leave? If you go out like this, people are going to think you’re kidnapping me and honestly, I wouldn’t even deny it.”

He scowled at her and headed into the bathroom. She trotted along behind him. “Hey, I didn’t invite you in,” he said.

“Well, clearly you need help with personal hygiene, because you haven’t demonstrated much capacity to manage it by yourself.” She began rummaging through the cupboard under the sink. She was so small she could practically crawl into it. “You got any dry shampoo in here, Frodo?”

He sighed yet again, resigned to his fate. He bent over to wash his face with water and hand soap, but she noticed what he was doing and shoved an old bottle of face soap (which he’d forgotten he owned) at his chest, saying, “Oh, absolutely not, buster. You’ve apparently sunk pretty low as of late but I’m not letting you sink lower. And brush your teeth, for God’s sake, so I don’t get too embarrassed to be seen with you.” Fjord thought a comment like that was pretty rich coming from someone dressed in threadbare tie-dye bike shorts and a pair of running shoes with the soles peeling off so much that he could almost see her socks, but he acquiesced nonetheless.

After she convinced him to put on a fresh shirt and pants (leaving the room while he changed because she didn’t want her “eyes to melt out of her face from pure disgust and drip all the way to Hell”), they got in Fjord’s car and drove to the nearest Goodwill outlet. Nott led him on a wild goose chase around the store looking for the exact items she’d been envisioning during the past week. “Jester said that if I have a psychic vision of what I want, the dream will manifest and it will present itself to me in the physical world,” she explained to him. “It kind of sounds like bullshit but also Jester gets almost everything she wants so maybe she’s onto something.” Fjord tried to play it cool when Nott mentioned Jester and not ask about her too much, but he had a feeling he hadn’t totally succeeded because Nott flashed him a weirdly knowing look.

Every time they passed by a particularly gaudy or goofy item of clothing Nott tried to coerce him into buying it, saying that it “fit with his whole ‘clown’ look”. “I don’t look like a clown, why would you even say that?” he asked, bizarrely offended.

“Why are you so defensive about it, then?” Nott replied, smirking as if she’d just made the winning argument in a debate. “Oh, hey, take a look at this,” she said, pulling out a jacket with a massive sequin patch artwork of Crash Bandicoot on the back. He tilted his head back and sighed.

It turned out that Nott’s psychic vision hadn’t completely manifested at Goodwill outlet, so they moved on to Value Village. After another exhaustive search and a tense fifteen minutes spent choosing between two nearly identical pairs of tights, she’d finally found everything she wanted. They were almost at the register when she realized that Fjord hadn’t picked out anything for himself.

She gasped. “Do you already have a costume, Ferg?” she asked him, sounding mildly horrified.

“I… need to… do that…?”

She looked at him like he was the dumbest person she’d ever met. “Uh, yeah, dumbass,” she said. “The house event was your idea, anyway! You can’t just not wear a costume, that would be totally lame! Even Beau is wearing a costume!”

“Beau’s wearing a costume?” he asked incredulously. He’d believe that when he saw it.

“Yeah, so you’d better figure something out soon, because you need by the end of the week,” Nott replied, sounding like she didn’t have a whole lot of faith in his ability to manage that.

He sighed. He’d been sighing so much today. “I’ll figure it out, okay?”

“You better,” she said distractedly. She was flipping through her wallet, which looked like it had been in use for several years. It appeared to have once had a Dora the Explorer design on it which was now obscured by hot-glued buttons, for some reason. She was studiously counting out crumpled bills and finger-smudged coins with an increasingly panicked expression on her face. She rifled through her armful of costume items again, double-checking the price tags and murmuring under her breath.

He knew what she was feeling. He’d been in her position often enough, during the time when he was unemployed, uneducated, financially cut off by his family, drifting through life on fumes. He made a decision.

Silently, he pulled a ten dollar bill out of his pocket. He’d been paying attention and he knew that would be enough to cover her. He knew she was too smart to be the kind of person who’d let her pride prevent her from accepting needed help, but he also knew what it was like to be hardscrabble and self-sufficient and marginalized and mistrusted by practically every societal majority, and he knew she wouldn’t believe that he would give her anything without an ulterior motive.

So he’d construct a simple one, to prevent her from imagining anything worse. “I’ll help you pay for that if you help me find a costume,” he said.

She glanced up at him appraisingly. After a moment’s consideration, she seemed to accept the veracity of his reasoning. “All right, deal,” she said. “You certainly need it, if your ability to buy normal, everyday wear is any indication.”

He smiled. She wasn’t so different from Beau, he thought. Neither one of them was actually mean at all.

They abandoned the line for the cash register and she led him on a second wild goose chase around Value Village. “We don’t have to try that hard, because you’re naturally good-looking, so you’ll probably pull off anything,” she admitted reluctantly, as though it pained her.

He smirked. “I thought I was ugly? You’ve been cracking jokes about how ugly I am literally all day.”

“And if you tell anyone what I said, I’ll deny it to my grave,” she said, pointing a bony finger at him as she searched through a shirt rack with her other hand. “Don’t go getting any ideas either; my brother’s single and eligible, but he’s already got his eye on someone, and it’s certainly not you.”

There was something unbelievably… clean about hearing her casual reference to somebody else’s queerness, completely unencumbered by judgment or opinion. It felt like a light shining into his chest cavity.

“I think you’ve got your own eye on someone, too,” she continued, a teasing glint in her eye. “Heard from Jester lately?”

He sputtered. “Uh… no… why would I… Jester?” he finished helplessly. Nott looked positively gleeful.

She held up a truly embarrassing bandana. “If you buy this and wear it, I’ll invite both you and Jester to have dinner with me and Caleb. And if you wear it on other days that aren’t the house event, I’ll come up with an excuse for me and Caleb to leave the room and not come back for like, forever.”

He stared her for a moment. She stared back. He snatched the bandana out of her hand and she burst out laughing. “You’d better keep that promise,” he grumbled.

“Hey, for you to keep your end of the deal up, you have to leave your room so I can see you wearing it. Can you manage that?” she teased.

The evening sunlight was shining in through the store windows, bathing the clothes racks in warm red-gold. Teenagers shopping for Halloween costumes laughed as they held up glittering masks over their faces, and regular customers milled around the store, talking to their spouses on the phone and smiling when they found bargains. The air had that distinctive thrift store smell, but it wasn’t so bad; he knew when he smelled it again in the future, it would remind him of today, and not of all the other times he’d shopped in thrift stores out of necessity and not whim. Time kept moving and so did he. The past still existed, but it got farther and farther away. “Yeah, I can manage it,” he said.

When he got home, he tapped into his Facebook account and left the online frat alumni group. He’d delete his old pictures another day, section by section. Baby steps. He hung the Halloween costume Nott had chosen for him in his closet. He made his bed, swept the floor, sprayed his desk with disinfectant and wiped it down, plugged in his laptop and phone, took a shower. Afterwards, he felt clean in more ways than one.

He hoped his “twin” was happy. He’d certainly looked happy. When Fjord got home from grocery shopping that evening, he stopped by the pantry, glanced around surreptitiously to make sure no one was around, and slipped a packaged novelty cupcake onto the top of Jester’s pastry stash. She’d left her purple Sharpie lying on the floor, so he picked it up and scrawled a quick note over the price tag. “Thought of you. -Fjord”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of people have also expressed concern that I'm going to make bad things happen to Fjord in this fic! Let me be clear: this fic doesn't really have a plot to speak of, it's pretty much just slice-of-life with a general progression towards everyone becoming friends with each other (and certain people falling in love with each other). You don't have to worry that it's going to get angsty! Anything sad that happened to these folks is in the past <3


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for the lovely kudos and comments!! <3

Molly was thoroughly enjoying his walk with Caleb in the park. Talking to his brother had significantly lifted his spirits and left him feeling a lot less sweaty-palms pounding-heart shaky-legs nervous about interacting with the man he really, really, really liked. It was a brisk and sunny October afternoon, and shards of crisp blue sky and autumn sunlight peeked through the gaps in the reddening treetops. Park-goers stretched out in the emerald grass, enjoying the last vestiges of summer before it became truly too cold to go outside without a winter coat.

Caleb looked perfect for this environment, as though the park were a painting and he were the subject. His ginger hair shone gold in the sunlight and complimented the amber and tawny shades of the leaves, and the slight chilliness of the air made his cheeks rosy, highlighting his freckles. His eyes looked like pieces of the sky. As he often did when talking to Caleb, Molly was finding it very difficult to focus on what he was saying instead of analyzing the shadows of his cheekbones or the arc of his eyebrows. He was the type of redhead whose eyebrows were a bit darker and more auburn than his hair, and it made for a very pleasing effect, especially because he clearly hadn’t shaved recently so his stubble was growing in, making him look rather rugged. Or, well, as rugged as person could look while wearing one of those stereotypical “professor” blazers that had patches on the elbows. He wasn’t even a professor yet but he already looked like one; Molly allowed himself a brief moment to fantasize about how nice it would be when Caleb was a professor in his own right, and he would be called “Dr. Widogast” and maybe he would take Molly with him to fancy faculty dinners where he and the other professors would discuss the merits of MLA format or something and Molly could wear something slinky and maybe a gaudy statement necklace and drink from a huge glass of white wine and pretend not to understand what anyone was talking about but then all of a sudden he would wow all of Caleb’s colleagues by making a scintillatingly insightful remark out of absolutely nowhere - a remark which would cause at least one of them to start their thesis from scratch, no doubt. And then he and Caleb would go home and have coffee and kiss and, well, one thing would lead to another… But he really needed to focus on the present. What if Caleb asked him a question and he was totally zoned out? If Caleb thought he was dumb, he probably wouldn’t even want to take him to fancy faculty dinners in the first place.

Caleb was talking about Semitic language families at the moment, which Molly found fascinating in theory, but he was ultimately more compelled by the idea of allowing Caleb to happily ramble about something he found interesting than by the idea of actually learning anything about linguistics. He was content to hum agreeably or tilt his head questioningly every thirty seconds while simultaneously paying close attention to the shape of Caleb’s upper lip. He tried to tune in and remember some tidbits of what Caleb was saying in case it was ever relevant later on. Most Semitic alphabets do not include vowels - that was an interesting thing he could mention at the fancy faculty dinner. It wasn’t really exciting or obscure enough to knock anyone’s socks off, but he had plenty of time to workshop some kind of unique inference about it. Would it be too risque to wear an evening gown to the fancy faculty dinner? He didn’t want to tantalize Caleb’s colleagues by showing too much skin. Then again, he did want to tantalize Caleb. He was envisioning something long and fitted, perhaps with a halter neckline. Ooh, or maybe a plunging neckline. Evening gloves would complete the look, but would probably be too melodramatic; he didn’t necessarily want to look like an aging diva from a 1950’s Hollywood movie. Classy bracelets would have to suffice. On the other hand, a suit with an elegant embroidered blazer would also be nice. He was picturing blue-on-black florals, to bring out Caleb’s eyes. Eyes which were now looking at him with mild concern.

“Mollymauk? Are you all right?” he asked.

“Oh yes, I’m fine, darling, I’m so sorry, sometimes the mind drifts, you know,” he said flapping his hand. Noting Caleb’s slightly crestfallen expression, he hastily added, “Not because of you! I adore listening to you! It’s just the ADD.”

Caleb nodded, clarity washing over his features. “Ah, ja, I understand completely. A friend of mine from school is actually doing her thesis on ADD and its relation to gender and race; I can give you her email if you want, she has some truly fascinating insights.”

Molly beamed. “I’d love that,” he said. It was so refreshing to reveal to someone that he had different mental software than most people and not have to explain to them what “ADD” meant, or assure them that he was managing it fine and it wasn’t negatively impacting him in any way, or listen to a boring anecdote about someone else they’d met who also had ADD, or field their questions and comments about how he seemed “totally normal” to them, or tolerate them trying to connect with him by claiming that they also had trouble focusing sometimes or got distracted a lot even though it wasn’t really the same thing at all. He supposed that was one of the advantages of being around someone very smart; Caleb just sort of Got things like that. Or maybe he just Got Molly.

If Caduceus were here, he would probably tell Molly to share out loud when he had a positive thought about somebody. “Thank you for being so understanding,” Molly said. “It’s very refreshing and I appreciate it more than you know.”

Caleb’s smile was so gentle that Molly felt oddly naked under his gaze, and couldn’t help but look away. “You don’t have to thank me for treating you with respect; it’s what you deserve,” Caleb said.

It was so similar to what Caduceus had said earlier about being a good brother that Molly was reminded of a quote he’d seen one time, probably on Pinterest or somewhere like that, about how when you have good family members or even just one good family member, you unconsciously seek out partners and friends who have the qualities of that person because they showed you how you deserve to be loved. He didn’t know if that was exactly true or not, but it did seem like Caduceus had influenced him at least a little bit even though they hadn’t even been a significant part of each other’s lives for very long. He knew that Caduceus would probably approve of Caleb though, and that was as much of a seal of approval as he needed.

Caleb was still smiling at him, and he felt this strange emotion where he was overly conscious of the exact moment he was in right now: the October sunlight, the vermilion leaves, the breezy day in the park, the kind and handsome man in front of him. He wished he could crystallize this precise juncture of time and space and preserve it in a snowglobe and show it to his past self, the person two or three or four years ago who routinely wondered whether life would ever be easy. “I can’t make the years go faster,” he would tell himself, “but here is what you can hope for. This is within your reach, and if you can believe it, it’s maybe even what you deserve.”

He was overwhelmed by a sort of quiet roaring happiness that rose from within and filled his lungs with warmth, and before he really knew what he was doing, he was leaning forward and kissing Caleb on the mouth. He’d kissed lots of people in his life, but not very many of them had been people he felt strongly about, and a lot of people didn’t realize how different those two things were. The stakes were so much higher when you actually liked the person; you worried so much more about how much tongue was appropriate and where you should put your hands.

Kissing Caleb felt very natural, though. And Molly also felt like his body was filling up with liquid light, as if he were an angel ascending to heaven or a princess whose curse had just been broken by true love’s kiss. He wasn’t conscious of how much time passed - maybe ten seconds, maybe a minute, maybe several breezy, sunlit days. But eventually his brain, which had slowed down considerably during mouth-to-mouth contact, reminded him that he had kissed Caleb without asking first, and he leaned away, starting to say something like “I hope you didn’t mind -” but he didn’t get to finish the thought because Caleb smoothly wrapped one arm around his waist and used the other to cup his jaw and then kissed him again, this time with much more urgency. And - oh wow. That was something, all right. Molly was losing the ability to formulate coherent thought.

“I was sort of hoping this would happen,” Caleb murmured into the corner of Molly’s lips, and his voice was so much lower than usual and it was really doing things to Molly’s blood pressure.

He appreciated the stubble on a whole new level now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 <3 <3


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO MUCH for the sweet and wonderful and informative comments! I appreciate them (and you) more than you can imagine!

It was the afternoon of the Halloween house event, and Molly, Jester, and Yasha were crowded in front of the mirror in the master ensuite bathroom, perfecting their costumes.

They were fortunate that the bathroom had two sinks, because between Molly and Jester’s respective collections of makeup, jewelry, hair products, body glitter, nail polish, sticky gems, and appropriately spooky accessories, there was barely room for Yasha’s toothpaste. In fact, she’d lost track of it somewhere in the chaos. Her exercise mat was rolled up and (presumably) stowed somewhere in the cupboard with all the plumbing and cleaning supplies, and Yasha herself perched on the edge of the bathtub, trying to hold still as Jester piled her mass of dark hair on top of her head and held it in place with bobby pin after bobby pin. Molly was playing music from his tinny phone speaker because they’d been unable to find Jester’s expensive bluetooth speaker - truth be told, it was probably buried under a pile of clothes on the floor somewhere, because Molly and Jester had spent an hour raiding both their closets in search of any final additions to their thrift-store ensembles.

Yasha still didn’t fully understand their costume concept. “The three witches from Hocus Pocus, but when they were, like, young and hot!” had been said to her upwards of twenty-seven times in the last week. “But won’t we just look like regular witches if we aren’t standing next to each other?” she’d ask. “That’s why we have to ALWAYS stand next to each other!” the other two had chorused in eerie unison. Yasha figured that she probably would’ve ended up standing next to one or both of them the whole time anyway; she wasn’t exactly the type to wander around parties unaccompanied.

In their excitement around costume planning, neither Molly nor Jester had thought to ask Yasha if she’d actually seen the movie Hocus Pocus. That morning she'd off-handedly mentioned that she hadn’t, so they forced her to watch it, and then forced her to watch it a second time immediately afterwards because the first time through they’d been talking and eating loud snacks and they felt that Yasha wasn’t really “absorbing it” - even though they’d been doing most of the talking and her snacks were relatively quiet. They were quite possibly the two most annoying people she had ever met. They were quite definitely the two people she loved more than anyone else in the world.

Molly set his bottle of red lip stain on the counter and scrolled through his phone with a ring-laden hand. “Are we feeling more ‘Monster Mash’ or ‘Anything Can Happen on Halloween?’”

Jester cocked one hip and hummed thoughtfully. “Ooh, how about ‘Thriller’?”

Molly turned to her with an open-mouthed grin, eyes dramatically wide. “PERFECT. But I’m deffo putting the other two in the queue.”

“Yassss. Hey Yasha, turn your head a bit this way, okay?” Jester gently cupped Yasha’s chin to angle it. Yasha’s earrings jingled as she moved; Jester had hung ostentatious dangling baubles from every one of her piercings, making her look rather like a display rack for gaudy jewelry.

“Jester, after you’re done with that, can you help me with my nail polish? I painted the base color but I can’t do the little designs as good as you can.”

“Only if you help me with my wig! I feel like it’s crooked somehow,” Jester replied.

“Here -” Molly got up and leaned over to adjust Jester’s wig, and since Jester was still doing Yasha’s hair, they made for an odd-looking chain of people with their hands on each other’s heads. Yasha almost wanted to run her fingers through Molly’s platinum-blond wig to complete the triangle.

Jester grasped one of Molly’s wrists to look at his nails; he spread his fingers obligingly. She gasped in delight. “Oh, I LOVE the colors you chose! That silvery burgundy is so sexy! Where did you get it?”

Molly laughed. “It’s yours, darling! It was in your nail polish box!”

“Oh, that old thing?” Jester glanced dismissively at a red-and-blue cloisonne chest on the counter that was probably worth more than every item of clothing Yasha owned put together, minus maybe her bullet-proof vest. “I never look in there these days! I guess maybe I should…”

“What designs do you want, Molly?” Yasha interjected. She loved when Jester did fancy nail designs - they were so tiny and delicate, like they were made by fairies.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to draw little dicks? I think it would be really cute and funny,” Jester suggested earnestly.

Molly twirled a pearlescent strand of fake hair. “You know, I said no to that earlier, but honestly I’ve really come around to the concept.”

Jester winked. “It would be the perrrrrfect way to let Caleb know you’re down to… you know…” Jester proceeded to wink so many times it looked like she was having some kind of aneurysm.

Molly laughed. “What, by painting pictures of genitalia on my fingernails? Darling, I’m much more direct than that.”

Jester shrugged. “Can’t hurt anyway.”

Yesterday Molly had sent their group chat fifty-seven messages in all caps proclaiming that he and Caleb - the man who lived upstairs - had kissed, to which Jester had responded with seemingly several thousand emojis and an insistence that she and Yasha go to the twenty-four-hour supermarket right away to buy some “congratulations flowers” to surprise Molly. Even though it was after midnight, Yasha obliged. Jester’s particular brand of kindness was vibrant and explosive like fireworks, and although it wasn’t the same as Yasha’s method of expressing love, she understood it very well at this point and enjoyed seeing it just as much as she enjoyed watching real fireworks.

An hour later, Molly had gone through his entire “halloween bopz n jamz” playlist twice in a row, and all three of them were costumed, hairstyled, and makeup-ed up to Jester and Molly’s standard of perfection. Then there was another forty-five minutes of photos, which mostly involved Jester and Molly posing seductively and making fashion-model facial expressions on various pieces of furniture and in all corners of the master bedroom while Yasha took snapshots from as many angles as she could think of on the spot. This, of course, was followed by fifteen minutes of Jester and Molly huddling together as they scrolled through all the pictures and discussed which ones were the best; they occasionally asked for Yasha's input, but she was "no help" because she thought they were all equally nice.

By the time they were done, it was almost completely dark outside, and rain lashed against the windows. The indoors was warmly lit and their golden reflections shone on the glass against the backdrop of the windy night outside. The three of them huddled back in the ensuite bathroom, admiring themselves in the mirror.

The lace-up bodice of Yasha’s red “witch dress” was very tight and arranged her decolletage in a way she literally hadn’t seen since before she started wearing a bullet-proof vest every day; feeling slightly self-conscious, she pulled her red cape a little closer around herself. (Jester had given her permission to not wear the vest today, promising she wouldn’t tell her parents.) The red of the cape wasn’t exactly the same as the red of the dress, but Molly and Jester had both insisted no one would notice because they’d be busy staring at Yasha’s face.

Her face did look rather remarkable. Molly and Jester had collaborated on her makeup, and they’d somehow made her look like a sweet ingenue and an elegant queen at the same time, which shouldn’t have been possible, but they made it work. She’d never worn lipstick this bold before in her entire life, and it felt both frightening and exciting. Despite herself, she smiled wide. Molly and Jester saw her smile and looked absolutely thrilled.

“Oh, Yasha!” Jester exclaimed as Molly cooed, and they both threw their arms around her and squeezed their three faces together, triplet pairs of crimson lips matching in the mirror. Jester’s orange beehive wig and sequin-encrusted gown were ridiculous, and the penises on Molly’s fingernails weren’t recognizable unless you looked closely, but they looked absolutely fantastic, and Yasha didn’t think she’d had this much fun putting on clothes in her entire life.

Molly kissed her cheek, and then leaned over to her other side to kiss Jester’s temple for good measure. “So now we’re dressed… are we ready to impress?”  
“Oh, we’re ready to impress all right!” Jester crowed, letting out a whoop. She tugged her neckline down a little and winked at the two of them. “If you two find Fjord first, send him over to me, promise?”

“Only if you push Caleb in my direction, dear.” Molly slung an arm over her shoulder and they both smirked at Yasha, who glanced down shyly, but still couldn’t stop smiling.

“I think we’ll have no trouble getting Beau to come over to Yasha, do you, Molly?” Jester asked.

“Oh, absolutely not!”

Their mischievous grins looked even more devious when they were both dressed up as witches, Yasha realized. Her stomach was flipping over like it often did when she thought about Beau, but there wasn’t any nervousness - just excitement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a warning, updates might be slightly erratic in the next two or three weeks because I'll be traveling and I may not have access to WiFi at the times I usually update every week! After that it should be back to the regular schedule though :)


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't stress enough how much I appreciate you guys and all your lovely comments and kudos and tumblr asks! And even if you haven't done any of those things, I still appreciate you very much just for reading! I hope you have a lovely day!

Beau milled around the dark, crowded, noisy hallway, looking for Yasha.

She and Fjord had spent all day getting the house ready for the halloween party, which essentially meant shoving all the furniture into the corners of rooms and pinning dollar-store string lights to the walls. Beau had also used a tall, empty armoire to block the main staircase when Fjord had told her he’d given the tenants permission to invite friends; she didn’t want any randos snooping around upstairs. The armoire was incredibly heavy; Beau was very proud of herself for having been able to carry it and she wasn’t too ashamed to admit that she’d glanced over her shoulder multiple times to see if Yasha was around to watch (she wasn’t).

Yasha and Jester had both been mysteriously absent all afternoon, actually, which was definitely a big reason why the house wasn’t more elaborately decorated (it lacked Jester’s special touch, or rather her impossibly high credit card limit and encyclopedic knowledge of Etsy stores that sold highly specific cutesy items). Now it was late enough in the evening that all the tenants were definitely downstairs, but Jester had apparently invited half her graduating class, because the ground floor was overrun with artsy college students who were probably not much younger than Beau but might as well have been about twelve from her perspective.

She scowled murderously as she was jostled by another seven-year-old wearing devil horns and three wallet chains and dancing to Monster Mash. Okay, they were probably more like twenty-one. Whatever.

Fjord and Beau had each invited some of their coworkers, including Beau’s very tall and very intimidating (and very attractive) boss Dairon, who was presumably somewhere around, because Beau had seen her arrive. As far as she was aware, though, none of the other tenants had invited anybody. Nott and her brother didn’t hang out with anyone except each other (and who would want to hang out with Nott, anyway?). Beau wasn’t even entirely sure that Caduceus was upstairs right now.

Speak of the devil… there was Caduceus’s weird brother, wearing a wig that made him look like Lady Gaga and drinking what appeared to be black cherry flavored Mike’s Hard out of a curly straw shaped like a bat. (Beau didn’t remember buying Mike’s Hard, and she definitely didn’t remember buying curly straws… evidently Jester had done some last-minute shopping.)

When Molly saw her, he raised his eyebrows approvingly. “Nice costume. You’re a… monk?”

Beau scowled. “No, goddammit, I’m clearly Obi-Wan Kenobi! From the prequels.”

“Okay, I don’t know who that is, and it just looks like you’re wearing, like, monk robes…”

Beau pulled her toy lightsaber out of her belt and pressed the button that made the glowing plastic “blade” pop out. She swirled it back and forth a few times for good measure, with a level of panache that she thought was fairly impressive. She taught kung fu, sure, but she’d taken a bojutsu class in Albuquerque - she knew what to do with a cool-ass stick. Molly just stared at her like she was a stray cat who’d deposited a dead mouse on his doorstep.

She spread her hands and groaned. “Come on, dude! Have you even seen the movies?”

Molly took a sip from his curly straw and raised his eyebrows (which looked like they had some kind of purple glitter powder in them?). “I don’t watch Hollywood films.”

“Blehh, I don’t watch Hollywood films, I’m an intellectual,” she mimicked at him in a nasal voice.

He smirked. “At least I’m not a nerd…” Seeing her scowl, he continued, “If you keep doing that, your face will stick like that, dear.”

“What are you supposed to be?”

He gestured at his Ren-Faire-looking silky crimson gown. “Clearly one-third of the Sanderson sisters. Well, I would be, if my two companions were nearby… I guess I’m just a smoking hot witch until I can find them.” He stood on his toes to glance around the crowded living room, but it was hard to see much in the dim purple light.

“I can help you find them,” Beau offered, patting his sparkly shoulder to get his attention.

“So lovely of you to suggest that with no ulterior motive,” he smiled at her. She opened her mouth to defend herself. “Ah ah ah, no, I definitely accept. And I don’t mind. Listen, if you’re planning to make a move on my beloved friend, we’ll need to chat about that anyway. Come along, let’s go to the kitchen.”

“Make a move - what - I don’t - you -” Beau sputtered, but Molly silenced her with a slim finger (wearing one of those ridiculous ring-attached-to-bracelet things).

Beau squinted at his hand. “Wait a second… are those dicks painted on your nails?”

He winked at her and grabbed her arm, pulling her towards the kitchen.

The kitchen was brighter; Fjord had put some camping lanterns inside those plastic jack-o-lanterns meant for holding trick-or-treat candy, which Beau thought was surprisingly creative coming from a guy who considered making spreadsheets to be a relaxing activity. The result was a warm orange light that bathed the platters of skull-shaped cookies and half-empty tequila bottles in a flattering glow.

She could also see Molly a lot more clearly now, and notice small details like the glitter in his false eyelashes, and his two glittery chokers, and the glittery fake tattoos on his cheekbones… really, there was just a lot of glitter everywhere. He smiled at her, revealing that he was wearing one of those gems glued to his canine tooth again. “So. Yasha,” he said.

“Keep your voice down,” Beau hissed automatically. It was still very loud in here.

Molly wiggled his eyebrows. “Are you going to ask her out?”

Beau sighed. “Look, I want to, okay? I’m just… trying to figure out how to do it.”

“It’s really not that hard to ask someone out. You just say, ‘Will you go out with me?’” Molly informed her archly.

“Oh, I’m sure you’re such an expert.”

“I do quite well for myself, actually!” He winked, and she stuck her tongue out.

His face turned more serious. “Look, as one of her best friends, I’m obligated to say that I’ll kill you if you hurt her. But believe it or not, I trust you. I know you won’t. Am I right?”

Beau gulped. This conversation had gotten very vulnerable very fast. “Yeah… you’re right. She’s, uh… she’s something special.”

Molly beamed at her like she’d just told him she’d won the Nobel Prize. “Yes, she really is.”

Beau cleared her throat, uncomfortable with this level of emotional openness and especially with the general idea of standing here while Molly smiled at her. “Come on, let’s check the dining room.”

They checked the dining room and found Fjord - wearing a Naruto costume, for reasons that utterly escaped Beau - being harassed by a very small zombie with huge green eyes. “Leave him alone, you little punk!” Beau said as she strode past.

“What are you supposed to be?” a scratchy voice called from behind her. “A shepherd or something?” Beau groaned. God, had no one in this house seen Star Wars?

On the back porch they found Yasha and Jester chatting idly in the cool night air as they leaned against the railing, lit in the soft warm glow of pumpkin-shaped string lights. Jester shrieked in excitement and ran to leap into Molly’s arms as soon as she noticed him.

Beau was barely paying attention to that, however. Because. Girl. HOT girl.

Yasha’s hair was piled mostly on top of her head with a few wavy strands framing her face, which revealed the shape of her jaw and the angles of her cheeks in a way Beau had never really seen before. It also drew attention to her arresting bi-colored eyes - she was wearing some kind of different makeup style that made them look absolutely breathtaking. She was even wearing lipstick, which made Beau notice that her lips were much fuller and more elegantly shaped than she’d realized. With her hair out of the way her swan-like neck was visible, as well as her graceful collarbone, and… cleavage. Which Beau had literally never seen before. She didn’t like to be crude and the last thing she wanted to do was objectify women, but she was human, and a lesbian, and a devoted admirer of the female form, and, well… girl hot.

She resolutely fixed her gaze on Yasha’s face. Which still wasn’t difficult, because as mentioned, her face looked unbelievable.

When Yasha glanced up through her eyelashes and made eye contact with Beau, and smiled just a little bit with those gorgeous dark lips, Beau’s heart nearly stopped.

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Molly whispered in her ear, because he was an asshole.


	30. Chapter 30

Caleb wasn’t entirely sure how he had tricked Mollymauk Tealeaf into going out with him, but he was eternally grateful that he had managed to pull it off in some way or another. At the moment, he was watching Molly pour himself a drink from the opposite end of the living room; Molly hadn’t noticed him yet. He was so attractive when he was smiling and batting his eyelashes and putting on a show for the world, but when he didn’t think anyone was paying attention to him, he looked just as beautiful. His features softened and loosened as if he was the pensive subject of an impressionist painting. He looked especially painting-worthy tonight, in lighting that made his skin take on a lavender hint, wearing dark lipstick and heavy eyelashes and a cascading silver-blonde wig that lent him the aura of twentieth-century Hollywood starlet. A magical Halloween Hollywood starlet.

Caleb himself originally hadn’t bothered to assemble a costume, which had infuriated Nott when she found out at the last minute. She made him put on his secondhand tux that he usually reserved for extremely formal occasions. It used to fit slightly too big, but his shoulders and torso and thighs had been filling out more lately since he’d stopped completely ignoring his health, and now it fit surprisingly rather well. She’d then traded out the jacket for a maroon sheet she’d presumably stolen from one of their housemates’ laundry, and made him wear a pair of plastic fangs she’d shoplifted from a dollar store last fall, and then begrudgingly but doggedly “shared” her zombie face makeup with him to make his cheeks more pale and hollow and his eyes more “spooky”. Finally, she’d forced him to shave his beard, which he wasn’t thrilled about. “Vampires are twinks,” she’d insisted. “Vampires aren’t real, spatz,” he’d retorted tiredly as he coated his lower jaw in shaving cream.

Molly finally noticed Caleb from across the room and began making his way across the room. Caleb gulped and nervously smoothed down his shirt. They’d already kissed, but even still, Mollymauk was by far the handsomest, kindest, and most all-around wonderful person who had ever paid Caleb a thimbleful of attention, and he really didn’t want to fuck it up.

Molly sauntered up to him, wearing a gown that revealed an expanse of tawny skin and some very well-put-together collarbone. And now he was standing much too close to Caleb; he smelled like clove essential oil and pomegranate soap. “Well, you look dashing, if I do say so myself,” Molly said softly, his dark eyes dancing.

“As do you, Mollymauk,” he replied, smiling faintly. “Rather bewitching, in fact.”

Molly’s face made the shape of a laugh. “You know, according to legend, all gingers are really vampires.”

“Ah, you have figured out my secret,” Caleb brushed a strand of fake hair out of Molly’s face. “It’s the one night of the year where I can dress as my true self.”

Molly grinned and rested a hand on Caleb’s chest, touching the hem of the makeshift cape. He frowned thoughtfully. “Wait… is this my sheet?”

Caleb cleared his throat ruefully. “It probably is. You can blame Nott for that. And -” His voice trailed off as he noticed Molly’s nails. “Mollymauk, you are wearing some, ah, interesting nail art.”

Molly’s eyes widened and he giggled awkwardly. “Oh, yes, that. Well, you see, Jester -”

Caleb laughed as soon as he heard the name. “Say no more.”

Molly was laughing too, and he looked so beautiful that Caleb couldn’t just not kiss him.

Molly had Caleb pinned against the wall of the stairwell by the time Nott’s voice came from out of nowhere, yelling “Stop making out with my brother in public!”

Molly removed his mouth from Caleb’s neck (to Caleb’s great sadness) to yell back, “We’re not in public, we’re in our own house!”

“Well, get out of my sight, then!”

Caleb could see her peering around the banister with an expression that was half disgust, half shit-eating grin (it was a complicated combination). “Oh god, spatz…” he buried his face in Molly’s shoulder out of embarrassment and annoyance.

“Fine, we’ll go upstairs,” Molly said slyly, spinning around in a swirl of green skirts and grabbing Caleb’s hand to drag him along. Molly squeezed his hand and winked at him. Nott looked like her plan had backfired horribly. Caleb took his fangs out and slipped them in his pocket.


	31. Chapter 31

“Oskar! Oskar! Ay-oh-ay-oh-ay, hello there!” Jester yelled, bounding up to her tall, muscular green-haired landlord as he stood in the kitchen eating a cookie shaped like a Frankenstein head.

Well, Frankenstein’s monster’s head. And his hair wasn’t green right now, because he was wearing a really awful Naruto wig.

“Do you love anime? I love it,” she said, peering up at him from his orange-clad shoulder. He jumped sharply, apparently not having realized how close she was.

“Oh Jesus - Uh, hi there, Jester,” he said awkwardly. She grinned. She absolutely adored how awkward he was.

He cleared his throat, processing what she’d said to him. “Uh, well, to be honest I haven’t watched very much anime, just Naruto.” She giggled; he pronounced it the ultra-American way, with the emphasis on the second syllable and the T almost becoming a D. “But Nott’s the one who picked out this costume for me… I, uh, owed her a favor.”

“Well, it’s perfect. It makes you look very handsome and shows off your muscles. You look just like the guy from Tusk Love if he was wearing a Naruto costume.”

Fjord’s cheeks colored and he shuffled his feet shyly. “That’s, uh… thanks, Jester.”

She relaxed against the kitchen counter next to him and leaned around to peer up into his face. She was, perhaps, a little tipsy, but still sober enough to know what she was doing and make use of her excellent and top-notch flirting skills. “You can thank me by giving me a drink,” she said, in a voice that was low and sexy like a Bond movie femme-fatale.

He shot her an amused little half-smile and poured some red wine into her favorite mug (it was shaped like a corgi). She beamed winningly at him and slid the mug over to herself, lifting it to take a sip and peering at him demurely over the rim.

For effect, she waited until she’d set the mug down again to roll out her next line. “No… I meant, like, a drink in a bar.” She winked at him.

He stared at her uncomprehendingly. “You want me to… drive you to a bar right now? I’m afraid my car is in the shop at the moment, otherwise I -”

She shoved his chest playfully. “No, you big himbo, like you could take me out for a drink! Like, take… me… out.” She layered as much meaning into the words as she could.

He continued staring at her and his mouth opened a little. “What did you call me - Never mind. Yes. Yes. Yeah.”

She ran a finger down his chest and smirked as flirtatiously as she could manage, and then plucked the Frankenstein cookie out of his hand and took a bite out of it. “Excellent. You already have my phone number. I’m here whenever you’re ready.”

With one last wink, she spun around, skirts swishing, and flounced away to find Molly and tell him all about what just happened. She took the cookie with her; she deserved a reward for that flawless play.


	32. Chapter 32

“So, uh… what’re ya drinkin’?” Beau asked, and then immediately winced. What a cliche thing to ask a girl at a party. Yasha deserved so much more than cliches. She deserved incredibly smooth lines and heartstopping witticisms that could sweep her off her feet. She deserved beautiful gifts and lots of riches, like diamond jewelry, and, like, expensive perfumes that came in those fancy glass bottles, and… well, Beau wasn’t sure, but maybe, like, silk? What constituted a romantic gift, anyway?

Yasha looked down at her red solo cup. “Oh, uh. Beer.”

“Cool. Neat.” Beau nodded thoughtfully and took a sip of her own screwdriver-in-a-solo-cup, hoping she looked aloof and mysterious and not like she was scrambling to come up with a sexy way to ask Yasha on a date.

Yasha just watched her patiently, a slight smile on her face, as if she could sense that Beau was gearing up to say something. Beau cleared her throat. “You look. Nice.”

Yasha beamed, possibly bigger than Beau had ever seen her smile. It kind of transformed her face into that of a gorgeous movie star. Christ, this was going to make it even harder to be chill during this conversation. “Thank you, Beau,” Yasha said.

“You’re welcome. I mean - ugh.” Beau set her cup down on the porch railing and put her hands over her face, inhaling deeply. She folded her arms and jutted her chin out. Goddammit, if she was going to do this, she was going to do it, right.

“Look, you’re really pretty, okay? And - God, I really don’t do shit like this often. Okay.” She took another deep breath, steadying herself. Yasha continued watching her with that gentle expression, clearly not expecting any rush. Her eyes sparkled in the warm light shining through the kitchen window. Beau focused her gaze on Yasha’s left temple; this was already going to be challenging, and eye contact would make it even harder.

“Okay, look, Yasha… When I first came to this town, I didn’t have much of a… destination in mind, I guess. I was pretty much just trying to get away. Like, from Albuquerque, and from the past, too. I kind of didn’t have any hopes or, like, ideas about what I wanted for the future, because I only cared about, like. Moving forward. Surviving, really. And when you’re only thinking about survival, you’re not really thinking about other things, like… like relationships. For example. I had kind of given up on all that shit, to be honest. Like, just accepted that I would never have it again, or even want it again. And, God, how do I say it…” She looked into Yasha’s blue-and-violet eyes. “You make me feel like… there’s possibility. Hope. You make me excited about the future. About all the parts of life that are more than just survival. Which is something I haven’t felt in a long time, and I wasn’t expecting to feel it, maybe ever. God, that makes me sound so sad, and I’m not, I wasn’t, I wasn’t anything. It’s like, I was in this place where… I was in a room, so to speak, where I had everything I needed to stay alive, and it never occurred to me to go outside. And then you knocked on the door, and made me realize there’s so much more outside that room. So much more happiness, and… and beauty.”

Now her face felt very hot. That was her Emotional Vulnerability Quotient filled up for the next three years at least. She cleared her throat awkwardly, peering down at her sandaled feet on the wooden slats of the porch. “So like, if you’re not too freaked out by… all that. Would you maybe want to. Uh. Go on a date… with me?” She desperately wanted to keep avoiding eye contact, but she wasn’t going to be a goddamned wuss who couldn’t look at a girl while asking her out. Even if it was the hottest girl in the universe.

Yasha was smiling at her. It wasn’t nearly as big and toothy as her earlier one, but she appeared just as happy. And there was this softness in her eyes that made Beau hopeful that she wasn’t about to get epically shot down.

“You also make me feel new, Beau,” she said simply, and Beau’s heart soared. She knew she was definitely grinning like a dork, but she couldn’t help it.

Yasha set her own cup down on the porch railing, and took Beau’s hand, her expression suddenly urgent. “Would you like to go to a haunted house with me? I have heard it is something Americans do for Halloween and it sounds very exciting.”

Beau felt like her entire body was glowing like one of Fjord’s makeshift jack-o-lanterns. “Only if I can hold your hand during the scary parts.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, babes <3


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little sick at the moment, but seeing all your sweet and wonderful comments really makes me feel better <3

“How old are you?” asked the little girl with huge green eyes.

Caduceus looked at her appraisingly. He knew she lived in the house with him, but he couldn’t remember her name. He’d never been good at names in general; he tended to keep track of people by the sort of energy they gave off, which Molly would probably call “vibes”.

She was standing in the doorway to the kitchen while he crouched on the back porch, repotting his succulents for the winter. Now that Samhain had passed, the cold and darkness had started truly creeping in; the sun rose later and set earlier, and the night fog crept through the garden and shrouded the hillside for hours after dawn. The leaves of the trees in the backyard were shifting from amber to brown and his flowers were withering and dropping their shriveled petals on the dewy grass. Nature was retreating for the dark half of the year, and he felt the instinct to do the same. Which reminded him that he really needed to get some warmer clothes. He was wearing his thickest flannel caftan at the moment but he still felt chilled to the bone. Molly would probably go shopping with him.

The girl didn’t look properly dressed for the weather. Her T-shirt was ratty and pocked with holes, although maybe that was the style now with young people. He could never keep track of things like that. Which reminded him of the question.

“I’m two hundred fifty six,” he replied placidly, patting the soil around his pink-and-silver echeveria.

The girl narrowed her eyes and chewed her lip, apparently trying to decide if this was a lie or not. “I think you’re lying,” she finally concluded.

“You’re right. I’m only fifty-six.”

She rested her weight on one hip and folded her arms, glaring at him. “I can’t tell if you’re lying now. Are you lying to me?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know if I’m lying to you or not.” He slid his bare feet into his house slippers and started setting his potted cacti in a cardboard box to bring them inside.

“How would you not know that?” She peered curiously into the box and gingerly reached a bony finger towards a particularly prickly golden barrel.

“I mean that - I wouldn’t do that if I were you - I don’t know how old I am. Maybe I’m fifty-six. If I am, I’m telling the truth, I suppose.”

The girl winced as she pricked her finger on the golden barrel. Caduceus lightly grasped her small hand in his huge ones and examined the injury. “Hmm. It won’t bleed too much but it’ll sting a bit, I think. Let me get you a bandaid and some antiseptic.”

She followed him inside even as she continued interrogating him. “How do you not know how old you are? I think you’re still bullshitting me! I don’t know if I trust you to heal my wounds!”

He led her to the laundry room and set his box of succulents on top of a washing machine for the moment. The machine was currently in use. He imagined the motion might help imbue some rhythm and life into them. They were so down during the wintertime and made rather drab conversationalists. “Sit up next to the plants,” he instructed the girl. She had a lot of lively energy; maybe she’d be a good influence on them.

She did. “Why don’t you know how old you are?” she asked again.

He carefully scrubbed her finger with a disinfectant wipe. “I just never paid attention to it, I suppose. Once you have a few birthdays, you start to lose count of them, you know?”

She stared at him dubiously. “Do you not know when you were born?”

He thought about it. “On a Wednesday, I think. Maybe a Friday? I think I’m an earth sign with a water moon… or maybe it’s the other way around?”

The girl looked thunderstruck. “Have you ever seen your birth certificate?”

“No. Have you?” He used the pad of his thumb to pat antiseptic cream on her fingertip.

“Well, I don’t look at it every day, but I could if I wanted to. Caleb has it in his briefcase of very important papers that he refuses to let me touch. So I could look at it whenever he’s not around. And then I’d know exactly when I was born!”

“That’s very convenient!”

“Exactly! Where is yours? Does your brother have it, too? You should look in his briefcase of very important papers.”

Caduceus thought about it as he wrapped a bandaid around the girl’s finger. “I don’t think Molly has one of those. And I don’t think he has my birth certificate, either, because we didn’t live in the same place until recently, so he would have had to travel really far in secret in order to get it.”

“Molly is your brother? I guess that makes sense.” She hopped down from the washing machine and looked up at him slyly. “You know… I can help you carry these plants down to your room. The room that you share with Molly.”

He smiled at her. “That’s very nice of you.”

She puffed out her chest, looking pleased. “I’m a very nice person.”

He didn’t actually need any help carrying the plants, because there was only one box and he was blessed with physical strength, anyhow. (It tended to come with the package of being unusually tall.) But he appreciated the company. He rather liked her presence, even when she was very clearly snooping through Molly’s belongings.

“What are you looking for?” he asked her curiously.

She jumped about a foot in the air and hastily shut the drawer she’d been pretending not to peer into. “Uh… nothing. I’m not stealing!”

A cursory glance at the surface of Molly’s vanity indicated that she probably had, in fact, been pocketing some loose earrings and maybe a coin or two. “I don’t think he’ll mind as long as you bring them back. It’s not as if he wears all of them every single day, anyhow.”

“Yes, I’ll definitely… bring them back,” Nott replied sheepishly. “You won’t rat me out, will you?”

“Rat you out? What does that mean?” He thought about it. “Does it have to do with crawling through small holes? Rats are good at that.”

“No, I meant you won’t tell Molly I took some of his stuff, right?”

“Oh. No, not unless you want me to. Do you want me to?”

“No, of course not! I don’t want Caleb to get mad at me. I think Molly is his boyfriend, although whenever I say that he gets all embarrassed and he’s like, ‘we haven’t had that conversation, don’t be rude, don’t say that to Molly, go do your homework, blah blah blah.’” She used her hand as a puppet to mimic Caleb’s voice. Caduceus chuckled and slapped his knee. It was highly amusing. The girl looked pleased that she’d made him laugh. “Personally, I think if you kiss someone, that makes them your boyfriend. Or girlfriend or whatever. And they’ve kissed, like, a lot. They kiss each other way too much in my opinion. You’d think the novelty would wear off eventually. I warned him about that and he got this really dumb look on his face and he was like ‘No, I don’t think so’ and then I contracted Grossed Out Sister disease and the prognosis is terminal.”

Caduceus laughed heartily and sat down on a pillow on the floor, pulling up another one for the girl to sit on. Molly apparently collected throw pillows. Or possibly he just collected beautiful items with limited functionality.

“I didn’t know Molly had a boyfriend. But he has talked about a handsome man a lot. I suppose that’s your brother.”

Nott sighed. “My brother is really handsome. Way too handsome for Molly. No offense though.”

Caduceus shrugged. Handsomeness didn’t mean much to him. “He makes Molly very happy. My brother’s been practically levitating and emitting showers of sparks these days.”

“Yeah, Caleb, too, I think. Whatever ‘emitting’ means. So you think they’re good for each other, then?”

“I guess so. I would have to meet Caleb to be sure, though. I’d have to read his energy.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “You mean like read his mind? You can do that?”

“Actually, I’ve never tried to read anyone’s mind. But maybe I can.”

“That would be so cool. You should try it on Caleb. I want to know if he’s planning on getting me a Nintendo Switch for christmas. I didn’t want to ask him directly because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise for myself, so I’ve been trying to just subtly drop hints and I think he’s smart enough to pick up on them.”

“Wouldn’t it spoil the surprise if I read his mind?”

She leaned towards him conspiratorially. “I guess the surprise is already spoiled by the fact that I’m trying to get him to give it to me. But maybe if I avoid thinking about it, I’ll forget about it and then I’ll still be surprised on Christmas!”

“That’s very smart,” Caduceus nodded sagely. “But wait - you have to remember it enough to remind him about it, so that he’ll be thinking about it and I can see it in his mind with my mind reading.”

The girl rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Hmm, you’re right. It’s going to be hard to get him to think about anything but Molly. Well, Molly, and his research. Those are the two things he thinks about all the time. Maybe he should just write a dissertation on Molly. On, like, how much jewelry one person can wear at the same time.”

Caduceus giggled. “He does wear a lot of jewelry. It looks pretty on him, though.”

“Yeah, I guess it does.” The girl’s face was thoughtful and a little sheepish. She pulled a handful of gold and silver bits and bobs out of the pocket of her track pants. “I was going to keep these, but I guess Molly can keep them instead. It’s probably mean to steal from him when he’s so nice to my brother.”

Caduceus smiled placidly as she replaced the jewelry on the top of the vanity. “That’s true. You should only steal from mean people. And Molly’s not mean.”

“I guess he isn’t.” She peeked at him over shoulder and smiled crookedly. “You’re pretty nice. And I guess if you’re brothers, you must be similar.”

“Are you similar to your brother?”

“Oh, yes. I think I taught him everything he knows about manners and, like, intelligence,” she informed him very seriously as she scrawled a note onto the top of Molly’s stack of lavender Post-Its using Molly’s silver Sharpie (which she then pocketed. Habits were hard to break, Caduceus supposed.)

After she went upstairs to “check on her garden”, Caduceus took a glance at the note. “Stop kissing my brother so much. One a day is fine,” it read. He chuckled and headed upstairs himself. He’d noticed the marijuana plants badly hidden behind his azaleas were overwatered, and now that he knew they were hers, he felt he ought to advise her on proper watering technique.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! If you're interested in this sort of thing, I also have character playlists for some members of the M9 (more based on the canonical versions than on the versions from this fic):
> 
> Beau: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3iqf2PaUdzjEiKVNBzE7GC?si=RSUfsW5hQrWuTXdxp06OtA
> 
> Caleb: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2KkZcBxxegCfqVyx9khKDF?si=xgvLGxg0R3mZdfWwnzewtg
> 
> Fjord: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6wzTHDnxzxibRoUnbxrLLH?si=wLSqpcFQTFOU_jsKPBYWLg
> 
> Molly: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3W2IZPVbD8av2QslZwQAb5?si=Nvf02MwuQn-n6MrRkcscmQ
> 
> Jester: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7yoDKG3eqkKHeKo6VN3uQe?si=Tz7peOXIRJKRccSb10e2NQ
> 
> Yasha: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3JdFgJtrpRPNtUk95e58vX?si=1QpQGKkeTemXaY7kyNjPiw


	34. Chapter 34

Here was a secret Jester had never really told anybody: she didn’t have any friends. Well, now she did. But it was a fairly recent development. For most of her life, she’d grown up in her parents’ mansion in the Crimea, wandering the empty marble halls with only her cats and her imaginary friends for company, taking lonely photos of herself in gilded mirrors and rearranging the artisanal flowers in porcelain vases on etched-crystal coffee tables. The only time she left home was to occasionally go shopping in Odessa with her mother, or to spend time at her father’s resort homes in Marmaris, Halkidiki, and the Baikal coast, and even at these places she spent most of her time alone, doodling on her family’s creamy letterhead and swimming in warm blue waters, imagining that maybe someone was watching her from a stone balcony, falling in love from afar.

This was one of the reasons she’d desperately wanted to attend college in the U.S. She could’ve gone anywhere she wanted as long as she could learn the language, but America specifically appealed to her because of all the movies and TV she’d watched as a child on the platform TV in her room. High School Musical, Glee, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Mean Girls, Clueless, The Breakfast Club, Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer - she wanted to be the protagonist of all of them. She wanted to be adorable and pretty and well-liked and meet her new best friend by the lockers on the first day of school and charm the popular letter-jacket-wearing athlete, who would take her out for ice cream and sodas after class. Those movies and shows were all about high school, to be fair, but college couldn’t be so different, right? It was still America - still the land of possibility and freedom and fried chicken and pink Cadillacs and all the rest.

She hadn’t made very many friends in college, though. She had a lot of Instagram followers and a lot of numbers in her contacts and a lot of Tinder matches that she kept forgetting to message back, but there wasn’t anyone she felt emotionally intimate with. Whatever that meant. It was hard to know what real friendship was supposed to look like when you’d never experienced it except with your imaginary friends, and those didn’t really count because you made them up. Calianna wouldn’t care if Jester spilled soup on her dress or talked too much about having a crush on one of the hot young housekeepers because she was imaginary, so she reacted however Jester wanted her to (she also part dragon, so that made her extra cool).

Jester hadn’t realized how much she needed love. It was the sort of thing where you didn’t notice it was missing until a little bit of it appeared, and suddenly you noticed how much empty space there was around it, and you almost started panicking because how could you never have filled it, all this time? How had you lived like this? Her parents loved her, of course, but her direct interaction with them was limited, and sometimes it wasn’t enough to just know that you were loved - you had to feel it firsthand, enough that you could call yourself an eyewitness to your own fulfillment, and a judge could say “Yes, you, Jester Lavorre, are wanted and special and beloved.”

First there was Yasha. She hadn’t really expected to become close with Yasha, given that Yasha was her hired bodyguard, and she also didn’t talk much, and neither of those things was particularly conducive to emotional connection. Luckily Jester loved to talk. She had opinions about absolutely everything, and saying them out loud made them real. It was a habit she’d gotten into - when you’re alone a lot, maybe a little part of you is afraid that everything you see is just a dream because no one else is there to verify it, and spilling your thoughts out into the world turns them into something you could lay out on a table and point at. That was why she had so many imaginary friends and imaginary pets, probably: talking was more fun when someone was listening. Talking to a real person was even better because sometimes they reacted in a way that surprised you. “I love it so much when girls wear short skirts and high socks,” Jester had commented offhandedly as they walked along the beach boardwalk, sporting matching purple sunglasses that Jester had bought in a souvenir shop in Santa Cruz. And Yasha had said, “It’s even better when they wear crop tops, too,” and looked a little surprised and shy like she hadn’t meant to say that, and Jester had been so happy she felt like her heart was exploding in fireworks. It was so good to have a friend, and even better to have a friend who was a girl who also liked girls, because then you could talk about your feelings as much as you wanted and not worry that it was going to be weird. (That conversation had opened the floodgates for months of outpouring to Yasha about Jester’s crushes on cuties of all genders.)

Then there had been Beau. For some reason, Beau had just struck Jester as someone who should be her friend. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but something compelled her to constantly send her text messages with lots of emojis and follow her around the house and knock on her door to ask her what horror movies she thought were the best (she liked Jennifer’s Body, which was how Jester had known that she also liked girls. Well, the undercut too. And the sports bras. There were a lot of signs.) Maybe it was the fact that she was grumpy all the time but Jester could tell that she was secretly a sweetheart. Or the fact that she projected aloof coolness while simultaneously being a bit of a dork. Or the fact that when someone was little prickly, it made Jester want even more desperately to find their soft center. Jester wanted to braid Beau’s hair and have sleepovers in the living room and play Truth or Dare like sixteen year olds. And even though Beau would complain and whine about it like nobody’s business, Jester knew she’d be okay with it.

And now there were all the others: Caleb, Nott, Caduceus. Caleb’s dry German sensibilities and flustered bookishness were so fun to mess with, especially when she discovered that they concealed an eccentric personality. Nott was much younger than her, but she was her new little partner in crime - literally, now that Nott was teaching her how to shoplift nail polish and hair clips from CVS, to Caleb’s dismay. She hadn’t had a chance to interact with Caduceus as much because of his work schedule, but she’d painted a lush green forest on the wall of his bedroom for him, and in thanks he’d left a box of homemade jasmine tea and a little mason jar of dried flower petals and mysterious powders by her door (the note attached explained that if she kept it by her bedside, it would ensure sweet dreams). She placed it in a location of honor on her nightstand next to her rainbow clock and her heirloom pearl ring, and she looked at it whenever she wanted to remember that someone cared about her enough to spend considerable time and energy crafting an object that only she would use.

And then, of course, there was Molly. She’d never had a best friend before, and having one made her feel like she was in one of her favorite movies. They’d text while they were in class to complain about their respective boring professors, and then they’d text on their respective metro rides home to share news about the boys they were respectively seeing, and they’d meet up in the kitchen to cook macaroni and cheese using whatever dairy products they could find in the fridge and pasta that probably belonged to someone else, and they’d do their homework with Teen Wolf or Vampire Diaries on in the background and occasionally glance up from their laptops to remark on the hotness of whichever model-pretending-to-be-an-actor was onscreen at the moment. Sometimes on weekends they dragged Yasha with them to sushi restaurants with the conveyor belts or consignment stores that sold faux leather pants or Free Reptile T-shirt Day at the zoo. Then they’d post pictures of themselves together posing in front of bathroom mirrors or sitting next to each other in lawn chairs or standing on a pier at sunset pretending to be a couple on their honeymoon, and they’d comment something effusively complimentary on each other’s posts.

But the best part was the closeness. The late-night conversations they got caught up in when they both happened to be getting a glass of water from the kitchen at the same time, the stories they confided in each other, the hopes and fears for the future they shared. Molly had even confessed to her why he always refused to watch Tusk Love with her, and she’d been absolutely shocked but she’d understood. (If she’d had to be in a YouTube video reading the sort of fan tweets that Lucien Indramurthy had to read out loud, she’d want to start her life over from scratch, too.)

Tusk Love was still her favorite movie ever, but it was okay that she couldn’t watch it with her best friend, because she had Fjord to watch it with. He was a little reserved, but she felt she had the ability to draw him out of himself, sometimes in the form of convincing him to do fun and silly things like watch the same blockbuster romcom for the fifth time. There was something subtle about him that really drew her to him. It could be the sort of… solidness he had about him, of the kind of that you only saw in someone who’d been through Hell and come out of it alive. She didn’t know all the details of his past, but she knew it had practically destroyed him, and now he trimmed the hedges and made morning coffee and re-grouted the tiling in the downstairs bathroom and read books about World War One and picked aster for the dining room table and he simply lived his life every day with a sort of powerful normalcy and stoic perseverance. He was alive and and very present in his aliveness, and she wanted to drink it up like clear water.

It could also be his quietness. He could be stupid and goofy sometimes, but there was something deep inside of him that was very still, like a mirror-smooth glacial pond deep in the mountains, and for someone who was always moving, there was something magical about that. She loved how energetic and dynamic she was, but she was also enamored by the bubble of silence that Fjord carried around in his ribcage. It was like she knew that if she started hyperventilating, she could touch him and she would breathe slowly and deeply.

She’d always had her friends, but now she had a family. And she still had Calianna, for times when everyone was at work and Yasha was doing calisthenics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, friend! I hope you have a lovely day!


	35. Chapter 35

There were times when Caleb wished he could take a moment out of his life and preserve it in a snowglobe and show it to himself from ten years ago. He would approach this pale, skinny eighteen-year-old who hadn’t grown into his height yet or found a haircut that worked with his face, who constantly worried that his English wasn’t good enough or that people would judge him for his secondhand clothes in muted earth tones, who spent lunch period at his big, loud American high school reading heavy linguistics tomes on tonal vowel construction outside on the bleachers even in the cold because he was too anxious to face the bland fluorescents and unfriendly crowds of the cafeteria. He would say, “Genau, I’m you ten years from now, and look at what I’m doing. I’m slow-dancing to Billie Holliday at a soiree for PhD students located in a history museum, and there’s a heart-stoppingly beautiful person in my arms who, beyond all reason, seems to find me very alluring. Can you believe it?”

He also just wanted to preserve this moment in a snowglobe for his own sake. He wanted to keep it on a shelf in his attic and glance at it again and again to remind himself that it hadn’t been just a dream.

“I love this song,” Molly murmured in his ear. Their cheeks were almost touching, and they were about the same height, so he could feel Molly’s eyelashes brushing against his temple.

He squeezed Molly’s right hand in his left. “Ja, so do I. Though it is not so nice that her sweetheart calls her crazy, perhaps.”

He felt Molly shrug. “Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s an affectionate ‘crazy’, like ‘oh, you crazy thing.’ I wouldn’t mind if you called me that, as long as the tone was right.”

He smiled into Molly’s curls. His hair had gotten longer since they’d met; now it fell into a bob that framed his face, and he’d styled it in soft cascading waves for this event. “Am I your sweetheart, then?”

“I guess so. You know, the thing is, love…” Molly’s hand absently played with a lock of Caleb’s hair at the base of his neck. Caleb could tell he was nervous because his Irish brogue was getting more noticeable; he’d pronounced “the thing” like “de ting” and he’d broken out the not-so-American “love” endearment (when he got really anxious about an upcoming exam, he started unconsciously throwing around “crack on” and “dosser” and even “feck off” - it was really cute).

“What are you nervous about, schatzi?”

“I - How can you tell?”

Caleb tilted his head in a shrugging gesture and held Molly closer. “I suppose I know you well enough by now.”

“Yes, I suppose you do.” He took a deep breath, exhaling into Caleb’s neck. Billie Holliday sang about walking into fire.

Molly leaned slightly away from him so that they could make eye contact. Caleb missed the closeness, but he was happy to be able to see Molly’s face better. It was a very nice face. He wished he knew how to paint so he could commit it to canvas. “I’m nervous because I, well, I wanted to ask - Caleb, would you want to - will you be my boyfriend?” he asked, words tumbling out in a rush. He looked genuinely worried that Caleb might not say yes, which Caleb found both endearing and surprising. Who on earth would ever decline such an offer?

“Of course I will, liebling.” Caleb replied as his internal organs dissolved into beams of light. “And you didn’t need to be so nervous; I am sorry that I have not made my intentions more clear.”

Molly beamed so much that his eyes crinkled up and sparkled in the candlelight. “Oh yes? And what intentions would those be?”

“Ja, well, I hope I would not be too forward in saying that you just might be the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“No, that - that would not be too forward at all, Mister Caleb.” Molly sounded slightly breathless; Caleb pressed his right hand more firmly against the small of his back to steady him.

“And so because of this, I’d like to be with you, as much as possible, in as many ways as possible. If you would be gracious enough to have me.”

“Of course I - you don’t even need to ask. Really. Caleb, darling -”

Molly used the hand that had been resting on his shoulder to cup his cheek and pull him into a deep kiss. A kiss that was perhaps too intimate for a public setting, as enjoyable as it was.

He reluctantly pulled away and dropped another kiss on the corner of Molly’s mouth. “Schatz, we are still in the room with all my colleagues, you know,” he reminded him, chuckling slightly.

“Oh, I know. Let them be jealous of how happy we are,” Molly winked. “Now, when you said you want to be with me in as many ways as possible, did you mean…” He raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow suggestively.

Caleb laughed. “I did mean all ways. I don’t want you to think that… well, I don’t only want one thing from you.”

“But you do want it, though?”

“Well… ja. If you want that as well, of course…”

“Oh, thank God,” Molly dropped his head on Caleb’s shoulder and Caleb laughed again.

“I’m afraid you will have to wait a while, though. I am sure I am not alone in not wanting our first time to be in a public bathroom.”

“Oh, I could make the concession, dear.” Molly smirked and ran his hands down Caleb’s lapels as the song ended. “But, listen, Caleb - I have something else to say.”

Caleb nodded, wondering what this could be about. “Would you like to sit down?”

“Yes, let’s.” Molly took Caleb’s hand and led them over to one of the cafe tables gathered around the edges of the room. As they sat down, Molly scooted his chair next to Caleb’s so they were sitting close enough to touch foreheads. Molly took both of Caleb’s hands in his own and nervously rubbed Caleb’s knuckles. Caleb squeezed Molly’s hands back to reassure him.

Molly sighed and began. “You see, there’s something I have to tell you, that I haven’t mentioned. Something about my past, and where I lived before I moved to San Francisco.”

Ah. So they were at this point now. Caleb nodded encouragingly.

“You see, I used to be very famous. Like, red carpet famous. I was a very talented actor, you see. The kind of person they would interview for magazines and write lots of tabloid articles about. I even hosted the Golden Globes once! I wore the most divine embroidered blazer - but. Anyway. It got to be too much. Fame is very stressful, you know, and I began to feel like the person I was - my name was Lucien Indramurthy - well, it didn’t feel like me anymore. And so I just - I started over with a blank slate. I dropped absolutely everything, and I gave myself a new name, and I left my old life behind, and came here, and now I just want to - I want to live a simple and beautiful life, with a man who makes me happier than any amount of money or starring roles or TV interviews ever did. If he’ll have me, knowing, you know - all of this.”

“That’s very lovely. Now, where is this man who makes you happy? Shall I help you break the news to him?”

Molly’s eyes were a bit wet, but he cracked a smile at that. He lightly smacked Caleb’s shoulder. “Oh, you stop that, I’m being serious.”

Caleb smiled and looked into Molly’s dark brown eyes. “Mollymauk, I… was aware of this. I don’t follow popular culture enough to know who Lucien Indramurthy is, but Nott figured it out very early and shared her theory with me, and at first I didn’t believe her but over time I started to get an inkling. You are much too beautiful to be an ordinary person and not a movie star, after all.”

Molly smiled down at his lap demurely.

“But liebling,” Caleb tipped Molly’s chin up so they could lock eyes again. “Your past doesn’t matter to me. Or rather, it matters to me because it’s a part of you. I can certainly understand the desire to start over. It makes sense to me. You make sense to me. As I said, I know you well enough by now, and I understand the things you do, and I support them. Nothing you say to me could ever make me care for you any less. Remember that.”

Molly beamed again and wiped one of his eyes. “I will remember that, Mister Caleb. What a wonderful thing to say.”

“You are a wonderful person. I can’t help but say wonderful things to you.”

And then they kissed again, and they didn’t try so hard to be modest since they were in public. (It was shadowy at their table anyway.)

“Caleb…” Molly murmured against Caleb’s cheek. “I’m ready to go home whenever you are, but I think I’m really going to need some help getting out of this cocktail dress. Would you be willing to unzip me?”

“Oh, I would be more than willing to unzip you,” Caleb smiled.

Molly smirked. “That’s good to hear. Because I meant -”

“I know what you meant, schatzi. I know you, remember?”

Molly just kissed him again, more urgently this time. Caleb was ready to go home.


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys: Loving these frequent updates!
> 
> Me, stressed about midterms and immigration papers, working on this fic to calm myself: Haha yeah :)

iMessage  
10:48 am

Molly: Guten Morgen, Schön <3  
Molly: I just woke up and I’m heartbroken that you didn’t wake me before you left for class, you absolute Schwein :(  
Molly: But… du bist immer noch mein Liebling <3 <3 <3

Caleb: Guten Morgen, Schatz.  
Caleb: Are you putting Google Translate’s free services to good use?

Molly: No!!!! How rude!!!! I’m remembering things that you’ve taught me  
Molly: Ye of little faith >:(

Caleb: I distinctly remember that the last time I tried to teach you German, you spent the entirety of the lesson trying to convince me that you would “learn better” if I removed my shirt.

Molly: I find buttons distracting ://///  
Molly: That was the ONLY reason :////////////  
Molly: I don’t remember you complaining anyway ;)))))))))  
Molly: So stop being so unhöflich!!!

Caleb: My apologies, Schatz. I won’t make fun of you anymore…  
Caleb: ...If you admit to using Google Translate…  
Caleb: They say that honest communication is key in relationships, ja?

Molly: D:<

Caleb: Du bist immer noch mein Liebling.

Molly: <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ich liebe dich <3
> 
> Thanks for indulging me with this lil bonus chapter :) I currently have 27 remaining chapters loosely planned, plus an extra non-narrative chapter at the end where I'll include bonus information about the characters that didn't make it into the story. And I'm probably going to end up sprinkling text/email formatted chapters here and there because they're short and fun.
> 
> P.S. I also have a couple of follow-up fics in the works for this universe but they won't be posted until this one's done ;D


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love and appreciate you (yes you reading this!)

Caleb had never run into either of his landlords outside the house. They tended not to run in the same circles. He spent most of his time in class, working in the library, researching in the library, researching in the library while he was supposed to be working there, taking Nott on errands that he didn’t trust her to manage alone without breaking the law or possibly a bone, and, increasingly, accompanying Molly on dates to restaurants and the cinema and scenic outdoor locations. His landlords spent their time… doing sports? He wasn’t really sure, but they both seemed very athletic, and Beauregard had once asked him if he could “lift” and they reminded him of high school classmates who had been nice to him so he would help them with their math homework.

So it would be an understatement to say he was surprised to find Beauregard at the library. He’d taken off his glasses and cleaned them on his sweater before putting them back on to make sure he wasn’t seeing some kind of bizarre optical illusion. But no, there she was, dressed in her usual getup of a sleeveless hoodie (in November!) over one of those sort of thick but tight-fitting athletic tank tops and a pair of men’s sport joggers, standing in the anthropology section, surreptitiously perusing an old-looking tome that he couldn’t make out the title of.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked, hoping she wasn’t here to ask him to pay his rent early or something of the sort. And also preparing for the off chance that he really was hallucinating and she was actually a stranger or maybe a rather lifelike cardboard cutout.

She grimaced. Ah, that was definitely Beauregard; he’d recognize that grimace anywhere. “Don’t call me ‘ma’am’, it sounds so… wrong.”

“Can I help you, Beauregard?” he tried again.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, ignoring his question.

“I work here. What are you doing here?”

“Um, I’m just… looking at… I’m, like, brushing up on my exercise technique. Definitely not anything nerdy. I’m not a frickin’ nerd like you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Unnecessarily rude. And we are in the anthropology section. I do not think there are any books on exercise in here, and I would know because I just did the inventory for it last week.”

She huffed in frustration. “Okay, fine, you got me, all right? I’m a closet nerd. But you can’t tell ANYONE, because I’ve spent a lot of time and energy cultivating this, like, aura of coolness, and if you ruin it, I’ll… I’ll throw away all your popcorn that you keep in the kitchen!”

“That is Nott’s popcorn, not mine.”

She chewed her lip. “I mean, I’d still throw it away. That kid’s a handful, she has it coming.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Caleb admitted. “So… what sort of nerdy book are you reading?”

“Hey, YOU can’t call ME a nerd. You work in the library, I’m just visiting.”

“I can call you a nerd, actually. Watch: You are a nerd. There, I just did it.”

“Okay, you know what? I thought Nott was a little shit, but she’s clearly just emulating you - Hey, watch it!” she snapped as he took the book out of her hands.

“‘History of the Romani in Slavic Europe.’ Sounds dry. What drew you to this one?”

“I dunno, the other day Jester said something about, like, the languages in her family, and how her grandma speaks a different version of Romani than her dad’s side of the family because she comes from a different area or something. I just thought it was interesting and I wanted to learn more about it.”

“And you couldn’t just ask Jester?”

“Well, I did. And she told me a lot about it. But I was still interested, so I wanted to learn more, and I figured the library was a good place to do that. I just… get curious about things sometimes, like history and science things. It doesn’t make me a nerd, okay?”

Caleb looked at her thoughtfully. He felt like he suddenly understood her much better as a person. His mother had passed away when he was very young, but one of the things he remembered about her was that she liked to make little wood carvings of animals and figures and sometimes even larger objects like toy wands for toddler Caleb to play with. Whenever neighbors or relatives had come to visit the house, she’d hidden her carving knife and her unfinished pieces, and she’d told Caleb to pretend that Papa had made the little wooden things. It was an odd memory to come to his mind at this moment, because it wasn’t the same. But he supposed that at some point both Beauregard and his mother had decided what kind of people they were, and that it wasn’t acceptable to do anything out of character for those kinds of people.

Caleb flipped through the book. “Well, I don’t know if you’ll find anything interesting in this one. It was written about thirty years ago and I think at least one of the theories featured in it has now been debunked. It also really is dry, and you should believe me about that because I’ll read almost anything.”

Beauregard shrugged. “Yeah, I figured.” She gazed skeptically at the other books on the shelf. “I don’t really trust ‘anthropology books’ much anyway. Hard to get past all that imperialism and shit. People like me have a… complex relationship with people who call themselves anthropologists.”

Caleb nodded. “That’s understandable. Although I would imagine some of the newer books are more worthy of your trust, particularly the ones by authors who are themselves from cultures that were the imperialized, not the imperialists. Reclaiming the discipline and all of that. I can show you some of my favorite books if you would like.”

She gave him a surprised look. “That would be nice of you.”

He shrugged. “It’s my job to help people find things in the library. I’m still on the clock, so I can’t exactly thumb my nose at you and go back to my desk.”

“Yeah, never mind, you’re still a jackass. Show me those books, though.”

He did. She ended up checking out two of them, plus a third because it had photos of art in it that she thought Jester might want to look at. While he scanned the barcodes, she snooped through the items at his desk, because she was very rude.

“Caleb… is this a romance novel?” Oh no. He could hear her shit-eating grin before he even turned to look at her.

“Put that away,” he hissed. “That one only came out a month ago and if Iva finds out I own a copy she’s going to ask to borrow it and I haven’t finished reading it for the third time yet!”

Beauregard looked like she’d just found out the gym was giving out free protein smoothies (or whatever jocks thought was exciting).

“You read romance novels?!” she stage-whispered, very loudly.

“We are in a library, Beauregard! Be quiet!” he stage-whispered back at her, slightly less loudly.

She didn’t answer. She was busy snapping a picture of the cover on her phone. He winced; it was a really embarrassing cover, featuring two men passionately embracing in a meadow of wildflowers. One of them had purple skin and devil horns. Sue him, all right, he was fond of high fantasy.

Caleb sighed and handed Beauregard her books. “I suppose there is no point in telling you not to spread that around.”

She sucked at her teeth sympathetically. “Yeahhh, sorry dude…”

He adjusted his glasses. “Ja, well, even still, I will honor your wish to keep your love of library books a secret. I will do this out of the kindness of my heart.”

Beauregard grinned. “I knew I could count on you-”

“And also because I never thought you were cool to begin with, so I do not think there is any point in outing you as a nerd. It’s already common knowledge.”

She scoffed and scowled at him. “Okay, whatever, nerd.”

He shrugged, not denying the claim. As she walked to the stairs, he thought to himself that he was rather glad he’d seen her here. It had been the most interesting work shift since the day he’d first met Mollymauk.

He looked down as his phone pinged. A text from Jester, which read “CALEB YOU SAUCY BOY” with what appeared to be several dozen emojis, some of which he’d never actually seen anyone use before. Ach, du liebe Zeit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> empire kids empire kids empire kids empire kids emp


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello sweet friends! I know I say this constantly but genuinely, I am so honored and amazed by the attention this fic has gotten. Please know that if you've taken the time to write out a comment, I have read it and re-read it and re-read it and re-read it and cherished it (and you) in my heart of hearts. If you've given kudos or sent me an ask on tumblr, you are very special to me, too. And if you're just reading along, I care for you just as much - I feel lucky and blessed to even be a small part of your life and bring you a little bit of happiness during your day. Writing this fic has been such a wonderful experience and I'm so glad to have you all with me along for the ride <3

“Are those tarot cards?”

Molly glanced up from the dining room table. Fjord stood near the window, arms full of packages, clearly having just stopped by the mailbox on his way home from work. Now that November was in full swing, the wind blew icy cold even during the day, so poor Texan Fjord was bundled up in a winter jacket and a knit hat and what looked like at least two scarves. Molly had grown up in Dublin so he was more hardened to inclement weather, but even he needed to borrow coats and sweaters from Caleb more often than not these days. Well, that and the fact that he just wanted to borrow clothes from Caleb. Intimacy and all that.

Although it was relatively early in the evening, the sun had already halfway set. Fjord’s hazel eyes glinted gold in the light from Molly’s candles. He wasn’t a particularly spiritual person, at least not as much as Caduceus, but he loved beautiful things, and the tall, slim dollar-store votives with vibrant icons of Saint Jude and the Virgin of Guadalupe were undeniably aesthetically appealing. He was probably a sight to see, sitting at the kitchen table with an array of elaborately painted cards and flickering candles in front of him, wearing Caleb’s oversized autumn-leaf-patterned wool sweater. The nag champa incense he was burning probably didn’t help.

“Why, yes they are,” Molly answered brightly, smoothly collapsing his deck into a single neat stack. “Do you know how to read them?”

“‘Fraid I don’t,” Fjord admitted. He sat down across from Molly, setting the packages on the table. They appeared to all be addressed to Jester. “I take it you do?”

“But of course,” Molly grinned and spread the deck back out, fan-like.

“Did you learn from Caduceus?”

It was a fair guess. Tarot cards did seem like Caduceus’ sort of… thing. For some reason, though, he had never taken much of a strong interest in astrology or numerology or tarot or any other classically “occult” things - he was more drawn to simply meditating in nature and gazing at the moon and taking care of plants. Tarot cards were Molly’s area because they were colorful and complicated and showy but also mysterious and a little bit elusive, just like him. Or at least, just like the persona he tried to construct. What was identity but a never-ending performance for an audience of one, anyhow?

“No, actually, I learned myself, back in Ireland. I found this deck in Los Angeles, though.” Like many of his more glamorous possessions, he’d bought it at an aging starlet’s estate sale. Each card flashed with touches of gilt, and the designs featured Mucha-esque maidens and youths draped in art-nouveau flowers and elegant swirls of light and shadow. Even the cards whose meanings didn’t have much to do with love were saturated in hazy colors and romantic imagery. The backs of the cards were a warm coral color with a pattern that resembled Edwardian wallpaper. He’d seen it and been compelled by supernatural forces to purchase it immediately.

Fjord gazed appreciatively at the backs of the cards as they glimmered in the candlelight, which was sweet of him because the backs weren’t even the interesting part (that was one way in which they differed from Molly himself). “Are they real? Like, have you found them to be accurate?” he asked.

Molly shrugged, hoop earrings jingling (they had little bells hanging from them). “Do they have to be?”

Fjord looked thoughtful. “I suppose not.”

“They’re beautiful and they make life interesting, is that not enough?” Molly asked playfully. “And do you know, I have found that they are, anyway. Fairly accurate, that is. At least, I’ve never seen things turn out completely differently from what they predicted.”

“Would you be inclined to do a little reading for me?”

Molly beamed. He had been waiting for months for someone in the house to ask him for a reading. Well, that wasn’t totally true, because he’d done multiple readings for Caleb, but each time he’d manipulated the deck so The Lovers appeared on top and then pretended to be surprised. Caleb hadn’t actually called him out on his trick, but he probably knew. (He almost definitely knew.)

“What’s your question, dear?” Molly asked, shuffling the deck.

Fjord stroked his chin, which had become scruffier as winter wore on. (It was a good look on him.) “I’m not sure I have one, actually…” he ruminated.

“Well, that’s perfectly all right. I can just do a simple past-present-future reading for you.”

“What’s that?”

Molly handed him the deck. “Just shuffle it a bit, thinking about your memories of the past and your thoughts on the present and your hopes for the future. And then divide it into three stacks - they don’t have to be even.”

Fjord did so. Long blue shadows stretched across the dining room as the sky descended into twilight, and the dark corners of the room shuddered at the edges of the glow of candlelight. The atmosphere danced on the fine line between cozy and eerie. Caduceus talked a lot about the “dark half of the year” and how it was a particularly ghostly time; Molly thought maybe he had a point.

Fjord laid out the three stacks of cards in front of him.

“Now take one card from each,” Molly instructed him.

When Fjord did so, Molly pointed at each one with a shimmery magenta fingernail. “This one represents your past, that one your present, and that your future,” he said.

Fjord nodded. “Seems straightforward enough.” He flipped the cards.

Molly leaned forward to see them better, being careful not to let the orange tassels on his sweater dangle near the candle flames. (He was starting to understand why Caleb didn’t wear this sweater much.)

“Ah, your past: The Tower. Destruction and chaos, perhaps even hitting rock bottom. Your life fell apart in some way, but it was a chance for you to rebuild. You lost a lot, but kept your integrity,” Molly said, hoping it wasn’t completely off-base. Fjord nodded, seeming to accept the veracity of this interpretation. Relieved, Molly moved on to the next card.

“Your present: the Page of Cups. You’re learning things; you’re at the beginning of a journey, and it’s a journey about love and relationships. All kinds of relationships, not necessarily just romance. You’re forging bonds with people, finding new connections, and perhaps rediscovering how to tap into your emotions,” he said. Fjord nodded again, smiling slightly, eyes soft.

“And finally, your future,” Molly continued. “The Sun. Good news, Fjord: happy times are coming. You’ve spent a lot of your life in darkness, but soon you’ll finally get to bask in the light. Hopefully we all will; we certainly need it.” He gestured playfully at the darkness outside the bay window, where it was starting to rain gently. “Of course, it doesn’t literally mean sunlight. Well, it could mean that, in part. But it’s more about… metaphorical sunlight. A sense of safety and peace, and a chance to enjoy the fruits of your hard work. A reprieve from the trials of life. A moment of inspiration and a chance to make the most of it.”

Fjord grinned. “Is that what you say to everyone you do a reading for?”

Molly laughed. “I swear that’s the real meaning of the card, dear, what can I say? Although I can’t promise I wouldn't have tried to spin your reading positively no matter what card you pulled.”

Fjord chuckled. “I’ll take it.” He reassembled the deck and handed it back. “Thank you, Molly.”

“Anytime, really,” Molly replied, and he meant it. He happily returned the deck to the silk sachet where he kept it. Doing readings for people was fun, but it was even more fun when the cards genuinely told a pleasant story even without his fabricated embellishments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Molly's card-reading method and interpretation of the card meanings are based on my own knowledge and practices which may not be the same as everybody else's, so if this tarot reading wasn't the same as ones you've experienced, that'd be why ;)
> 
> Also, I've started working on a beaujes fic on the side! It's goofier and shorter than this one and will be finished earlier, and both of them will be updated equally frequently (at least once a week). It features the M9 as idiot college students. Feel free to check it out if you're a fan of that ship!


	39. Chapter 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're having a great day <3

Fjord didn’t feel attracted to people very often. He could probably count on his fingers the number of people he’d ever wanted to kiss, and he only needed one hand to count the people with whom he’d acted on that desire. It didn’t come naturally to him like it did to some people, he supposed. When an opportunity for romance presented itself, it never struck him as very urgent, and there were always a hundred reasons not to pay attention to it.

Every now and then he felt truly drawn to someone, though. Jester was one of those people. She was much louder and more colorful and vibrant than he was; the sun to his moon. In theory, a person like her should’ve intimidated him, but she just made him feel safe. She exuded kindness and affection like sparks showering off a bonfire, and he was a man who had lived in the cold and the shadows for a long, long time.

Her warmth was purely metaphorical though, as it would appear.

“O.M.G., I’m so cold, Oskar, feel my hands!”

Fjord tried not to visibly flinch as a pair of icy palms clapped onto his cheeks. They were indeed VERY cold.

Jester had invited him to take a walk with her on Baker Beach, claiming that she was bored of studying and he “didn’t need to mow the lawn, Oskar, it’s winter so the grass doesn’t grow, anyway”. He hadn’t felt particularly inclined to argue with her. He’d taken her out for a drink after they finished cleaning up the remains of the Halloween party, and then they’d gone many more times for drinks and coffee and dinner and lunch and sometimes they just quietly sat in the living room while she drew manga characters on her tablet and he researched how to fix the sink in the basement bathroom. And sometimes researched jellyfish - he wasn’t immune to getting distracted, and they were so interesting and iridescent, just like, well… Jester.

He supposed they were dating, although that word felt stomach-turningly optimistic. All he knew was that he liked her, an amount that made him nervous and embarrassed and terrified and frustrated and incandescently happy all at the same time. And he was gradually becoming aware that she liked him too, possibly even close to the same amount. Which made him even more incandescently happy.

They liked each other enough, apparently, that walking on Baker Beach in November was romantic, in the way that everything was romantic when you were involved in a romance. Objectively, though, it was not a very pleasant experience - the wind coming off the ocean buffeted them like a battering ram, and the heavy wool-gray sky blended into the cloudy fog that sank over the ghostly silhouette of the Golden Gate Bridge, and it was so cold that Fjord’s kneecaps had gone numb through the holes in his jeans. (His legs were mostly numb, too - the jeans weren’t that thick.)

But he didn’t care about any of it. He was here on the seashore in the freezing cold in the middle of a dark and chilly Bay Area November and he was walking side by side with a stunningly beautiful woman who managed to make him smile by merely entering the room. He had nothing to complain about, really.

“Your hands are very cold indeed,” he said, placing his own over them and hoping she couldn’t feel his face flushing. Well, at least it might warm up her hands.

She beamed at him like he was the most exciting thing she’d ever set eyes on. “I know! And the rest of me is cold, too! I guess we will just have to huddle close for, like, survival…”

Wordlessly, he removed his green quilted jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders, tucking her into it so it would stay on. She stared up at him in surprise. The cold had made her golden-brown cheeks sunset-rosy, and her dark eyes sparkled like gems. Fjord wondered if he was ever going to get over how pretty she was. Probably not.

“You don’t need to give me your jacket, Fjord! I don’t want you to be cold,” she said, even as she pulled the squishy material tighter around herself.

Fjord suppressed a shiver. He was now just wearing his hooded sweatshirt under a flannel half-zip, which probably would have been enough for a lot of people, but he’d grown up in the desert, so he might as well be an Antarctic explorer right now. “Don’t worry, I’m fine,” he assured her.

She quirked a smile, peering up at him. “You are a really kind guy, Fjord.”

“I - you really think so?” He’d been called lots of things, but he didn’t recall ever being called kind. And nobody had called him anything for a while, anyhow. Sometimes when you actively retreated from society and resisted other people’s perception, it worked. To an extent, at any rate.

“Yes,” she replied. “It’s very kind of you to give me your jacket - and you do lots of other kind things, like taking care of the house and stuff. But you can have your jacket back - I was just complaining about the cold so… well, so you would hold my hand.” She smiled shyly and looked down at the gray-beige sand through her feathery eyelashes.

Fjord’s lungs switched place with his liver. Or it felt like it, anyhow. “Oh…”

They stood there in silence for a moment, Jester shuffling her feet and digging them into the damp sand. The wind whistled and tossed their hair around their ears. Then Fjord’s brain caught up with the proceedings. “Oh!” he said, and he quickly grabbed one of her hands in his own and squeezed it.

Jester beamed at him. He felt like he’d won a prize. She tipped herself up on the toes of her purple fur-lined boots and pecked him on the cheek, leaving behind a kiss-shaped sunburn, or so he imagined. Her smile took on a layer of amusement, probably at the shell-shocked expression on his face.

“Well, I’m ready to go home now,” she informed him brightly, swinging their joined hands back and forth with enough force to pummel anyone who might’ve been standing behind them. “Oh - here, take your jacket back!” she said, moving to shrug it off.

“No, really, Jester, wear it on the way back, I don’t mind.” He held her hand tighter so that she wouldn’t let go. “I’m plenty warm now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok but how could anyone Not be in love with Jester


	40. Chapter 40

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! This chapter is slightly on the longer side (at least for this fic) and it also has the following content warnings:  
> \- brief descriptions of past experiences with homophobia and misogyny  
> \- references to past emotional abuse from a male authority figure  
> \- references to past behaviors associated with eating disorders  
> \- brief descriptions of someone reacting to traumatic memories  
> As always in this fic, none of it super heavy. But if you'd prefer to avoid those topics, or want to know more about the context before you read, I'll include a chapter summary in the end notes!

Today was Nott’s seventeenth birthday.

Caleb had sent out a group email some days before to ask the other people in the house to help him organize something for her; Yasha learned about it right away because she’d been retaping the posters on Jester’s walls and then Molly had burst into the room, gushing about how “my man is so thoughtful!” Personally, Yasha felt that celebrating your little sister’s birthday was the bare minimum of thoughtfulness, but she refrained from mentioning that. Molly probably wasn’t used to people planning birthday events unprompted, which she understood, because she wasn’t either. She liked Caleb a lot, anyway. Molly had been in an especially sparkling mood lately because of him, and Yasha could never complain about that.

The house had thrown together a dinner and Mariokart night and everyone was bringing a small present for Nott. Caleb had informed them that she liked small, shiny things like earrings (Caleb said that he was considering letting her finally get her ears pierced) and rare coins and semiprecious stones and beads she could make charm bracelets out of, and so Yasha had gone down to the seashore early that morning at low tide to find some interesting rocks. Yasha loved rocks (although not nearly as much as she loved flowers). She liked to keep the ones she found in interesting shapes and colors, and she stored them in a little cardboard box in her nightstand drawer that used to hold black tea.

“Those are some really cool rocks, Yasha,” Jester had said admiringly early that day as she observed Yasha washing the rocks clean in their bathroom sink. Yasha smiled proudly. They were a very nice collection of rocks - smooth and oval and all shades of gray and black and rust-red, and they looked slick and bottle-green when they were wet. She’d even found a very pretty piece of translucent ice blue seaglass, which she was especially proud of.

“Does Nott like rocks?” Beau asked. She had also been with them in the bathroom that morning. She’d been hanging around Jester and Yasha a lot more now that Beau and Yasha were going on dates - dating? She was never sure of the right English terminology for things like this. One time she’d told Molly that she and Beau were going to go to the back garden to “have intercourse” because she’d thought that was what you called having a conversation with someone you liked in a romantic way. Molly had burst out laughing for several minutes and Beau blushed really hard but at least didn’t seem displeased. Neither of them explained her mistake to her, but she assumed intercourse actually meant something more risque than conversation, which made sense because she’d learned the word from Jester.

“I think she does,” Jester said. “Caleb told us she collects those shiny rocks they sell in, like, museum gift shops. You know, the ones where you put them in like a little velvet bag and you can keep as many as you can fit in the bag.”

Beau looked dubious. “Yeah, but I meant, like… maybe she mainly likes those rocks, like, the ones that have already been polished and shit.”

“She couldn’t find these in a store,” Yasha reminded her as she admired her haul once again. (One of them was all charcoal-hued with a band of white running all the way around it!)

“Yeah, exactly, Beau,” Jester had said, shoving Beau’s shoulder so her body bumped against the white wooden door frame. “These are rare rocks! She couldn’t steal them from a museum gift shop, because they don’t even have them there! Plus, you shouldn’t be so rude to your girlfriend, or she won’t want to go out with you anymore…”

Beau started sputtering incoherently. Probably about the word “girlfriend”. Yasha wasn’t well versed in English dating terminology (as had become blatantly apparent) but she was aware enough to know that girlfriend was an important word, and Beau seemed almost scared of it. The few times Yasha mentioned it around her for various reasons, she became very nervous and changed the subject quickly. If someone else were in Yasha’s place they might have been concerned, but Yasha wasn’t worried. She knew Beau would talk to her about it in her own good time. That was one of the things they shared in common, she’d realized - they were both careful about what they said and when they said it. Initially she’d considered Beau a much more impulsive talker than herself, but through knowing her better, she’d come to learn that even though Beau spoke faster and louder and more readily than Yasha did, she was just as slow to reveal her secrets and just as ginger when it came to heavy topics. And they were well suited to each other because of this; they gave each other the patience no one else had given them. They would probably make excellent girlfriends for each other, Yasha thought. Whenever Beau felt ready to start using that word.

Since Fjord and Caleb had work, Molly and Jester had class, and Caduceus needed to sleep, Caleb had sent Beau to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for Nott’s favorite dinner (chicken enchiladas plus a vegetarian alternative for Caduceus) and Yasha had been recruited to pick up Nott from school and take her to Fisherman’s Wharf while everybody else arrived home in intervals and began cooking dinner and decorating the downstairs.

Now she and Nott were walking along the wharf, drinking cheap hot cocoa out of paper to-go cups. It was chilly out but the sky shone with a clear, delicate empyrean periwinkle and the fading sun lit up a surprising amount of people milling around, dressed in vividly colored puffer coats and flannel beanies, enjoying the seashore during the holiday season. It occurred to Yasha that Jester’s parents had hired her to essentially spend every minute of her day with Jester, and she’d been growing less and less committed to her bodyguard duties in the last few months. However, she felt that helping Caleb pull off a nice birthday dinner for Nott would directly impact Jester’s happiness, and Jester’s happiness seemed like a much more immediate matter to focus on than Jester’s safety from Crimean gangsters (whose presence in San Francisco was largely hypothetical).

“I bet everybody at school thinks I’m really cool now because they saw you picking me up,” Nott said, taking a sip of her cocoa.

“Why would they think that?” Yasha asked, squinting at the seagulls wheeling in the celestial lavender overhead.

“Because you’re super scary-looking,” Nott told her matter-of-factly. “No offense,” she added quickly.

Yasha shrugged. “It’s in my job description to look scary.” Probably. It hadn’t been anywhere in the contract, but she assumed it was one of her unwritten duties. And it was also simply true, as far as she was aware. She was taller than most people and she wore a lot of black, and even that alone was probably enough to unsettle.

“Do you like looking scary?” Nott asked, peering up at her. (They had a height difference of at least a solid two feet, maybe even more).

Yasha pondered that. Did she like looking scary? “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I used to not like looking different, but recently I’ve been growing more accepting of it. I don’t think looking different and looking scary mean the same thing, though.”

“To some people they do,” Nott replied darkly. Yasha felt an unexpected surge of kinship and fondness for her.

“I don’t think you look scary, Nott,” she said. It came out much gentler than she’d expected it to.

Nott sipped her cocoa pensively. “You see, I’m not sure how I feel, because I want to be tough, but I don’t want people to be afraid of me. Well, I guess being tough means that some people are afraid of you. Like, the bad guys. But I don’t want EVERYONE to be afraid of me, I want to be… what’s the opposite of scary-looking?”

Yasha skimmed through her mental English vocabulary. “Approachable?” she ventured.

“I guess so. But I think sometimes people decide that you’re not approachable, or that they just don’t want to approach you, based on how you look, or something about who you are that you can’t change. And usually you don’t want to change it anyway, but maybe in this moment there’s a little tiny part of you that does want to change it, just so people would be less scared of you. And that kinda sucks,” Nott finished, sounding tired.

Nott wasn’t the most eloquent speaker, but her words reverberated in the depths of Yasha’s torso. She’d lost her place on the women’s national swim team because of who she was, after all.

She’d given so much of herself to that team - hours and days that added up to years of her life. She’d pushed her body beyond its limits so often that she wasn’t sure it would ever recover completely. Her coach had imposed a strict diet on the women that was essentially a famine - it seemed contradictory to run faster and faster and lift heavier and heavier weights while consuming smaller and smaller rations of fuel, but at the time there had been something glorious in their self-destruction, something holy in their suffering, like the bloody figure on the crucifix that had hung on the wall of the orphanage where Yasha grew up.

As a little girl, Yasha had stared up at that emaciated Christ and wondered what he would say if he found out she’d had a dream about marrying her friend Irina. Her coach certainly wouldn’t have approved, even though homosexuality was officially decriminalized not long after she’d woken up from that dream, sweaty and terrified and thrilled but mostly terrified. Laws were only real inasmuch as they were enforced. So many people fashioned themselves vigilantes, and it was easy to be a vigilante working against a law that was mostly imaginary anyway. Because Yasha had been designated a girl and had no qualms with that designation, she was in less direct danger of violence than anyone else who didn’t fall into that category. But she wasn’t safe. She was never safe. Orphans spent their childhood in fear, and queer orphans set up long-term housing there.

Her coach, Oban, had been the closest thing she’d ever had to a father. She didn’t know what fathers were supposed to be like. She’d probably guessed wrong. But his pride and approval felt so good to her - or something approximating good, to a young woman who hadn't experienced a lot of goodness. The more trophies she won, the more hours she practiced, the more pain she was in, the more he valued her, and the more she valued herself. “Yasha, you are my special favorite,” he’d told her one day. She’d thought it was the best day of her life for a few minutes. “Your behavior and your work ethic have been so exceptional. I trust you to help me keep the other girls in line.” (He called them girls even though they were all adults.) “If you let me know when you see them doing anything unacceptable, I will appreciate you even more.”

Yasha desperately wanted him to appreciate her. If he didn’t appreciate her, what was any of it for? What did all of her pain mean?

She didn’t know what happened to Ysenia and Natalya after she told Oban she’d seen them kissing. There was a small, unhinged part of her that imagined things had been okay for them. But the bigger, sadder part of her knew that things had very much not been okay for them.

It wasn’t long before she herself was kicked off the team, too. The lack of shock had been very strange. She supposed she’d been waiting for it to happen - expecting it, accepting it, believing she deserved it.

“Yasha, are you okay?” Nott asked, squinting at her.

Yasha blinked back into the present. The air was so bright, and the seagulls’ screeches needled her eardrums.

Today is Nott’s birthday, she reminded herself. You are in America now. Not Russia. Oban is very far away and you will never see him again. And you have friends now who care for you and think it’s good that you are attracted to women. You even have a girlfriend - well, maybe.

She smiled softly at Nott, even though inside her chest there was a smaller Yasha who was sobbing onto a linoleum floor, and there was an even smaller Yasha who was terrified that Irina wouldn’t want to be her friend anymore if she knew about the dream. Where was Irina, anyway? Nowhere anymore. Somewhere far away. Inside the mind of the little Yasha in Yasha’s chest. “I am okay, Nott,” she said.

Nott continued squinting at her. “Did the thing I said make you sad?’ she asked, sounding worried. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“You didn’t make me sad,” Yasha assured her. She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I think I am always carrying some sadness around with me in my pocket, and sometimes I forget I have it, but sometimes I accidentally touch it.”

Nott nodded in understanding. “I do that with my rare coin collection.”

They walked in companionable silence for a few moments. Yasha still felt like there was a hurricane raging within the confines of her ribcage. Both small Yashas were screaming, and now there were more small Yashas, all screaming in a chorus together. The seagulls circled overhead. One of them pecked at a piece of funnel cake someone had dropped on the ground. The Yashas pounded on the inside of Yasha’s chest, demanding - well, Yasha wasn’t sure what.

Maybe they just wanted to be let out. “I did a very bad thing,” Yasha said, soft as a heartbeat, and the Yashas quieted down so they could hear a little better.

Nott tilted her head, prompting her to go on.

Yasha took a deep breath. “I did a bad thing, and I have also been in a lot of pain. And sometimes I’m afraid that the pain is what I deserve because of the thing I did.”

The little Yashas had vanished. Now her ribcage was eerily empty and hollow.

Yasha felt something touch her hand, and she looked over in surprise to see that Nott had grabbed it in her own.

“I don’t think anybody really deserves pain, even if they did a bad thing in their past,” Nott told her. She looked like she was about to say more, but then she closed her mouth and simply gazed up at Yasha. That statement alone was enough, Yasha thought. It echoed in her hollow chest, waking up her heart and lungs from wherever they had disappeared to.

Yasha squeezed Nott’s hand with her own, and then removed it so she could swipe at her eyes. “I am sorry that you had to comfort me on your birthday,” she said ruefully. “This day should be about you.”

Nott shrugged. “It’s no problem. I know Caleb is planning a surprise dinner for me, so that will definitely be all about me.” She giggled when she saw Yasha’s bewildered expression. “Oh - was that supposed to be a secret? I saw the texts on Caleb’s phone. It’s super easy to hack into, especially now that he changed his password to Molly’s birthday.”

Yasha couldn’t help but smile at that.

“By the way,” Nott continued. “I think if you realize you did a bad thing, then you must be a good person, because bad people never seem to know how bad they are - they just go around thinking they’re normal.”

That made Yasha laugh - not because it wasn’t true, but because it seemed like such an obvious thing to never think about, almost silly in its clarity. She took Nott’s hand again.

That night, she presented the rocks to Nott, who was absolutely delighted with them. Just as Yasha had predicted, she thought they were the best gift because they were only one she couldn’t have shoplifted from a store on her own time. And just as Yasha had predicted, she was especially excited about the seaglass ("Now I can start a seaglass collection!").

“Thank you, Yasha!” she exclaimed excitedly, darting across the living room and hugging her around the middle.

Yasha hugged her back, feeling so full of joy she imagined it was pouring out of her eyes and ears like liquid light. Glancing up, she made eye contact with Beau, who was smiling at her with an almost religious adoration. Her heart burst into golden flame.

“Hey,” Beau said later, leaning over and whispering to her as they sat on the sofa; Molly and Jester were engaged in a loud and increasingly aggressive slap-fight over who got to be Princess Peach while the others either tried to pull them away from each other (Fjord and Caleb) or avidly watched the proceedings like spectators at a gladiator tournament (Nott and Caduceus).

Yasha smiled at her, a secret, private smile just for Beau. “Hi.”

Beau tucked a strand of hair behind Yasha’s ear as she weighed her next words. Yasha waited patiently.

“So I know you can probably tell I’ve been, like, avoiding the word ‘girlfriend.’”

“I have noticed that.”

Beau chewed her lip bashfully. “Yeah, well. Uh. This whole relationship thing is, uh… not easy for me. I feel like I have a lot of… things that I’m carrying with me. From the past.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Yasha said fervently.

Beau flashed her a fond half-smile that made Yasha’s stomach perform cartwheels. “Well, but… I want to move on. I want to be in the present. With you. And I want us to have a future together, as… as girlfriends. If you’re okay with that?”

Yasha’s skin was electric. “I am superly okay with it,”

Beau beamed, and also chuckled in a way that meant there had probably been something quirky about Yasha’s grammar. Oh, well. When she was very happy, she forgot to construct her English carefully, but it was a small and worthy sacrifice.

She yearned to touch Beau and be close to her, but since they were still in the room with all their housemates, she conceded to merely press one of her palms to Beau’s cheek. Beau closed her eyes like a cat, lips pleased. Yasha felt like her whole arm was on fire from the connection.

She also felt very safe right now, in this room full of people who loved her. And she was proud of herself for being able to feel safe, and for being able to understand that she was loved. The thing in her pocket was still there but it was much less heavy in this exact moment. Maybe someday she would take it out and leave it behind. That day felt sooner than ever.

And she had a girlfriend - a girlfriend! She only wished Little Yasha could see her now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Nott's birthday, Yasha goes for a walk with her on Fisherman's Wharf and their conversation causes Yasha to remember details from her childhood and her time on the women's national swim team, where she faced discrimination for being a lesbian and cruel treatment from her coach. Nott comforts her, and later at Nott's birthday dinner, Yasha feels safe being surrounded by her friends. She and Beau also agree to be girlfriends.
> 
> By the way, if anyone is wondering why this fic takes place in San Francisco, it's because the concept was inspired by the series Tales of the City, which is a serial-style story about queer people living in a house in San Francisco in the 1970's. It was fairly revolutionary for its time because it featured gay, bi, and trans characters just, like, living their lives and being people! Later books also dealt with topics like the AIDS epidemic. It's pretty different from this fic in tone - there's a lot more plot and drama, and a fair amount of drug use and sexual content. It was also written in the 70's, so obviously some of the language is a little outdated. But it's a fun story and I recommend it if you're interested in queer history and looking for something new to read. (There a couple different TV adaptations too, but I haven't seen them so I can't vouch for how good or bad they are)
> 
> Hope you have a great day <3


	41. Chapter 41

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friend! Thanks for reading this far!

Loneliness was not a feeling that came naturally to Caleb Widogast. Like many anxious, introverted little boys, he’d spent the majority of his childhood playing with legos by himself, quietly accompanying his father on errands to the pharmacy and the hardware store, patiently coloring within the lines while his young classmates threw pieces of clay at each other, and reading fantasy novels that were several grades above the average reading level for his age. When he was sixteen he’d moved to a foreign country (a foreign hemisphere, even), where the language barrier and culture shock made it even more reasonable for him to be reclusive and bookish and spend his Friday nights doing homework in the computer room while his new baby stepsister repeatedly knocked on the door to ask when he would finish because she wanted to play Zoo Tycoon. It wasn’t loneliness - it was just his life.

At age eighteen his stepmother passed (the second time in his life that he’d lost a maternal figure) and his father returned to Germany, leaving him mostly alone in the daunting task of obtaining a college degree while also essentially raising an eight-year-old and making enough money to support both him and Nott in the gaps left by his father’s sometimes-adequate monthly allowance. He’d had to make a whiplash-inducing transition from childhood to adulthood, completely skipping the “carefree youth” stage enjoyed by most of his university peers. His work was never finished - school, job, fifth-grade parent-teacher conferences, rent payments, online quizzes that had to be completed by eleven fifty-nine pm (he definitely didn’t miss undergrad these days). And he’d done it all on his own. It had never been easy, but he’d also never had the luxury of admitting to himself how not-easy it was. If he let himself go down that road, he’d start to lose his mind a little bit and fantasize about faking his death and running away to become a cab driver in Puerto Vallarta, leaving all of his responsibilities to flounder in his absence like fish on dry land. In his weaker moments, he was overwhelmed by a sort of formless anger and resentment - at the universe or God for building the circumstances of his life in this way, at his father for leaving the country, at his mother and stepmother for leaving the earth, at himself for not always being strong enough to handle everything with aplomb and grace, at all the blank silhouettes around him where there were no supportive figures, at the academic world for demanding so much of him so unreasonably, sometimes even at Nott for needing him so much. It was in these moments that he truly felt lonely, because it was in these moments where he had the gall to expect anything to be different.

But things had been different lately - just a little bit. Now that Nott was older she required much less direct assistance and supervision (maybe she didn’t always get up to the most morally pure activities, but at least she wasn’t in any immediate danger that he could observe). Being a grad student allowed him a lot more flexibility and freedom than he’d had in his undergrad years, and it was also more consistently rewarding and enjoyable - the homework-induced moments of “Why am I doing this? Is it even worth it?” came far less frequently. In the past few years he’d been able to save up enough money that he and Nott were no longer living Caleb’s-paycheck to Caleb’s-paycheck the way they’d been when he was twenty-one. Living in the house was also nice. The attic was spacious enough that he didn’t really mind sharing it with Nott, and seemingly every week they found a new odd piece of vintage home decor hidden behind a rafter beam. (Nott had most recently claimed a very weird art-nouveau lamp shaped like an eerie-looking forest wight with blank jasper eyes. Caleb had let her take it without any argument.)

Sometimes he still felt about a thousand years old, but also like he’d never been young. During the years when he’d had to become far older and more mature than his physical body, it was like he’d lived and died and lived again through multiple lifetimes. It was hard to remember that he wasn’t even thirty yet. He wasn’t even done with school yet. Nott wasn’t even a legal adult yet. He still had so many decades stretching out in front of him, and yet he felt he’d bypassed the period of time when he should’ve been youthful. Maybe he was still youthful now. Maybe youth was just a construct and nobody was ever really youthful, even the youth. Maybe he was just an old man losing his marbles.

The funny thing was that now he was learning what loneliness felt like - now, at twenty-eight years old. It was entirely possible, in fact, that he’d been lonely his entire life but he’d never realized it because it had never stopped. But now that it was stopping sometimes, he suddenly understood its omnipresence. An omnipresence which was waning now that those blank silhouettes in his life were slowly becoming occupied with supportive figures.

He missed Molly when Molly wasn’t there. Even if Molly was just going to class and would be back in a few hours. Even if Molly hadn’t woken up for the day yet, but likely would soon. Even if Molly was just in the bathroom for a minute or two. These were all vastly different lengths of time, but they each contained a daunting eternity. Daunting, especially, because Caleb wasn’t used to missing people. Missing people, like loneliness itself, implied an expectation of togetherness, a belonging in togetherness, maybe even a rightful place in togetherness. Caleb had never imagined his rightful place to be anywhere but solitude. Molly was showing him that perhaps he’d been wrong for twenty-eight years, and funnily enough, he’d never been so happy to not be right.

Of course, it was very difficult to explain all of this verbally without any preparation beyond simply musing about it whenever he was washing his hair in the shower, which was why he was somewhat at a loss for words when Caduceus asked him, “How do you feel about my brother?”

The question had come pretty much out of nowhere. Caleb had just been sitting at the dining room table, working on his translation of an Akkadian hymn, while Caduceus stood at the kitchen counter humming tunelessly as he ground dried herbs with his mortar and pestle. Caleb hadn’t even expected Caduceus to talk to him; their paths didn’t cross often, and when Caduceus did see him, he tended to merely smile dreamily before meandering off.

Caleb stared at him, nervously tucking a lock of hair behind his ear. His hair had been getting very long lately; it now just barely fell past his shoulders. Whenever he talked about cutting it, though, Molly would protest vehemently, going on and on about how he loved to run his fingers through it. Which Caleb, of course, didn’t mind at all, but he also didn’t know many more times he could tolerate it getting caught in his jacket zipper. Or how much more he could tolerate Nott teasing him about how he looked like “a folk singer from the seventies”.

“Ah, I suppose I… care for him very much,” Caleb said awkwardly, hoping that was the right answer. It was true, albeit a very simplified and understated version of the truth.

“So do I,” Caduceus replied, sounding satisfied with Caleb’s response. “I hope you treat him well. Otherwise I’ll have to cast a curse on you.” Caleb laughed. Caduceus didn’t laugh.

They went back to their own activities, silent again. It wasn’t the same as all thousands upon thousands of other times Caleb had sat silently working on something, though. He wasn’t alone. Physically, of course, there was someone else in the room, but on another level, there was someone else in the room who liked him and would talk to him if he wanted to talk, and that made a world of difference.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	42. Chapter 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! Thanks for reading!

Yasha was the only person in the house who owned hair cutting tools, which was extremely ironic because she was also the person in the house with the lowest inclination to ever change her hair in any way.

She couldn’t really remembered why she owned them; presumably they had been among the collection of things she’d impulsively bought before starting work as Jester’s bodyguard. What if Jester expected her to cut her hair? Was that a bodyguard duty?

As it turned out, Jester had never asked Yasha to cut her hair - probably because most people didn’t get haircuts from their bodyguards, and most bodyguards didn’t own hair cutting tools. But then one day Beau had made an offhand comment about needing to re-buzz her undercut but having trouble doing the back because she could never see it properly, and Yasha had casually offered to do it for her, to Beau’s immense shock. And then Beau had mentioned it to Fjord in a text conversation, and Fjord had texted back asking if Yasha could buzz his undercut too. And then Caleb had overheard Fjord and Yasha discussing it in the kitchen and asked if Yasha could trim his hair as well. And so this was how Yasha found herself on a rainy afternoon in late November, standing in the well-lit downstairs bathroom with her housemate, her landlord, and her girlfriend squeezed next to each other on the edge of the bathtub with their backs to her, looking for all the world like a trio of school-kids trying unsuccessfully to share a bench on the school bus.

“Fjord, move over, you’re practically pushing me into the tub,” Beau grumped, elbowing her cousin and accidentally knocking Caleb’s shoulder in the process.

“Ow… why are you so strong?” Caleb muttered, his tone comically melancholy.

“You’re the one taking up the most space, Beau, stop gaslighting everyone,” Fjord retorted, shoving her back.

“Everyone needs to sit still,” Yasha admonished them slightly desperately.

“Guys, you’re being so loud, I can’t hear Yasha,” Beau yelled (significantly louder than either of the men had been, it should be noted). She twisted her shoulders around to smile adoringly at Yasha. “What did you say, babe?”

Fjord rolled his eyes dramatically. Yasha couldn’t help but smile back at Beau; she looked breathtakingly cute peeking at her from behind like that.

“I don’t think this is going to work, because you are all so close together, I won’t be able to reach the front of anyone’s head. Can one of you go sit on the toilet seat?”

Beau nodded authoritatively. “Anything, babe. Hey, Fjord, go sit on the toilet. You should be with your kind anyway.”

“That was really clever,” Caleb muttered sarcastically as Fjord whined, “Why do I have to sit on the toilet? Caleb’s butt is smaller, he could fit on it easier.”

“Stop talking about Caleb’s butt, I already hear enough of that from his dumb boyfriend,” Beau replied. She pinched Fjord’s ribs, eliciting a glare.

“Don’t call Molly dumb,” Caleb said quietly, blushing furiously. He got up and dutifully walked over to sit on the toilet seat.

“He is dumb, though,” Beau informed him, like she was telling him something incredibly obvious that he should’ve noticed by now.

Caleb opened his mouth to say something else but Yasha cut that off at the pass, surprising even herself. “All right, all of you please be quiet. Let’s listen to music instead.”

The three of them shut their mouths, perhaps shocked into silence by Yasha’s interjection. She was usually more the type to wait until absolutely no one was speaking before she even considered adding to the conversation. Perhaps months of living in safety had provided fertile ground for her confidence to grow (just a tiny sprout, but it was there). She took out her phone and turned on her newest workout playlist. “I’m Beginning to See the Light” by Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots kicked up a gentle, waltzy beat from her tinny speakers.

Caleb sat ramrod-still, closing his eyes, as she used her barber’s scissors to slice inches off his slippery-soft ginger locks. She let herself enjoy the silkiness of his hair in her hands and the tenderness of being close to someone else. Cutting someone’s hair was so intimate, she thought. In how many other contexts was it acceptable to touch a person’s hair? In how many other contexts did someone put so much trust in another person to care for them? She could see his freckled cheekbones and stubbly jaw in so much detail from this close; she noticed that even his eyelashes were red.

When she was done with Caleb, she brushed the trimmed hair off his shoulders to let him know he could open his eyes, and he stood up slowly, peering sheepishly in the mirror. Now that his hair was shorter, it waved like the curling edges of a watercolor painting, framing his face and revealing the contours of his cheeks and jawline. Beau and Fjord cheered and clapped from their perch on the edge of the bathtub. Caleb grinned shyly as Beau insisted upon taking a photo of him to send to Molly.

Fjord’s eyelashes were longer and darker and heavier than Caleb’s, and his hair was tightly curled like unspun wool. She noticed that he flinched involuntarily when she touched his scalp and the loud buzz of the razor made his eyelids flutter anxiously, so she used her non-dominant hand to squeeze his muscular shoulder in reassurance. Slowly as a fawn learning to walk, he raised his hand and placed it over hers. His face stilled and relaxed. Yasha’s heart swelled.

When Fjord’s hair was cleanly buzzed (with some pillowy thickness left on top) he stood up and examined himself in the mirror more confidently than Caleb had, turning his head side to side and even grinning a little. Yasha felt a warm glow of fondness for him; he tended to be a very buttoned-up sort of person, and it was pleasant to see him emerge from himself in little bursts.

Finally, it was Beau’s turn. Yasha’s heart stuttered; if she had thought it was intimate to cut Caleb and Fjord’s hair, that was nothing compared to cutting the hair of someone she might possibly be falling in love with. She was finally running her fingers lightly over the velvety shorn hair on the back of Beau’s head, just like she’d dreamed about all those months ago; she was finally brushing the long espresso-brown flyaways away from her studded ears, she was gently adjusting the angle of Beau’s neck, she was knotting the water-soft top half of her hair up and out of the way, and Beau was so pliant, so trusting, letting Yasha tilt her head this way and that, lips falling open slightly as she hummed in acknowledgement. They were so close. Yasha could see the tiny dark hairs between her eyebrows, the pearlescent brown whorls of skin below her eyes, the little divot between her nose and her upper lip. Yasha felt like the two of them were in a bubble together, and every other color and sound and every part of the rest of the world was gone and forgotten for the moment - it was just Yasha, and Beau, and Yasha and Beau and Yasha and Beau and Yasha and Beau.

When Yasha finished the haircut and Beau turned to look at her, absent-mindedly running a calloused hand over her newly buzzed hair. Their eyes locked and Yasha suddenly felt her head spin like she was drunk even though she’d been sober for years. She felt like a stereotypical Victorian lady who needed to collapse onto her fainting couch because she was overwhelmed. Yasha couldn’t look away, though; she was feeling so much, and she wanted more and more and more. It had been so long since she’d felt this much want. Maybe she never had at all.

The bubble burst when Fjord spoke. “Thank you for cutting our hair, Yasha,” he said earnestly.

She turned and smiled softly at him. “You’re welcome,” she said, nodding as Caleb thanked her too.

Beau just grabbed her hand and held it. Not squeezing, just holding. The bathroom was still, quiet except for the drumming of raindrops from outside, but Yasha was hurtling headlong, thrown into freefall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cutting your friends' hair is queer culture tbh


	43. Chapter 43

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy December!

Jester was probably Nott’s second favorite person in the house after Caleb. She was seemingly in a good mood ninety percent of the time and when she wasn’t, she still wanted to hang out and complain loudly about whatever was upsetting her and drink rosé out of a massive glass like she was a cast member on The Real Housewives. She always let Nott have a sip of her drink, which Nott pretended to appreciate even though she thought all wine tasted like ass and she could easily steal it from the kitchen or even the grocery store if she really wanted some. She not only supported all of Nott’s ideas and endeavours (even the ones which Caleb might refer to as “harebrained”) but enthusiastically offered to help with them and even came up with her own additions. In return, Nott did the same for all of Jester’s schemes.

Today’s scheme involved secretly decorating the entire house for the holidays while everyone else was at work or class. Jester insisted it would boost everyone’s morale. “Are you sure Caleb will like it?” Nott had asked. “He’ll love it!” Jester reassured her confidently. Nott was fairly certain based on her knowledge of Caleb, which she believed she could safely call extensive, that he would not love it, but Jester sounded so sure of herself that it was hard not to agree with her.

The last time the house had been decorated was the Halloween party, and Fjord and Beau’s half-assed efforts hadn’t particularly impressed Jester. Nobody in the house celebrated Thanksgiving because Nott and Beau were both Native American and everybody else except Fjord wasn’t American in any sense, and Fjord didn’t seem to care about the holiday particularly. (Caleb was probably a citizen at this point or had something adjacent to citizenship status but his ability to pay attention to U.S. culture had always been extremely limited). (Nott wondered if it was bad that she didn’t know whether her brother was a citizen or not.) (Nah, it was probably fine.)

Now that it was fully December, Jester’s love of Christmas was in equally full swing. She subscribed completely to every “classic” American Christmas tradition, from stockings to eggnog to Santa to hokey animated movies to especially mistletoe. “We have to hang this over EVERY doorway,” she told Nott gravely, gathering an armful of plastic “mistletoe” (which really looked more like holly than anything else) from the shelf at the craft store closest to their neighborhood.

“Ew, why?” Nott scowled. She was generally in favor of anything Jester wanted to do, but she drew the line at kissing their housemates.

“Because it’s fun and romantic!” Jester exclaimed, spreading her hands to emphasize her statement and unintentionally sending fake mistletoe flying all over the floor. A middle-aged woman frowned at the two of them from further down the aisle.

Nott knelt to pick up the decorations, surreptitiously pocketing a couple sprigs. She didn’t know what she would possibly need them for, but there was no harm in being prepared. “We shouldn’t only get Christmas decorations, by the way. Caleb is Jewish. In theory.” Nott couldn’t remember the last time Caleb had set foot in a synagogue or said any prayers out loud within her earshot, but he still generally avoided pork and acknowledged Yom Kippur by at least mentioning “It’s Yom Kippur today”. When Nott was younger, he used to play dreidel with her around Chanukah, using M&M’s or chocolate coins in place of money. She was also fairly sure he spoke Yiddish, although she couldn’t remember if he’d always known it or if he’d learned it as a linguistics major.

Jester nodded, biting her lip thoughtfully as she stared at two wreaths, one of them dark green and the other frosted white. “I think Fjord might be, too. Maybe? I don’t know for sure, but I definitely remember him saying he’s not Christian. I mean, I’m not really either, but I still celebrate Christmas and I don’t think he does.”

Nott finished gathering the mistletoe off the floor and deposited it in Jester’s shopping cart. “We should probably just get Chanukah decorations anyway, for Caleb at least. And if Fjord isn’t Jewish, he'll probably still like them.”

“That’s true, they are pretty colors. Hey, how many ornaments do you think will fit on this mini tree? Probably around a hundred or maybe two hundred, right?”

Nott stared dubiously at the mini tree they’d picked out. It was slightly shorter than her. “I’d say we could fit at least two hundred fifty.”

“Great, then we can get both the Star Wars ornament set AND the Star Trek ornament set!” Jester happily tossed both boxes in the cart. Nott heard the soft sound of something shattering from within one of them.

“Do you think we should just text Fjord and ask if he’s Jewish?”

“Is that polite?”

Nott sighed. “I don’t know…”

“I really don’t know, either, that’s why I asked,” Jester said, sounding mildly dismayed. “Either way, though, we shouldn’t ask him because then he might guess that we’re secretly decorating the house and we want it to be a surprise!”

Nott thought that would be a bit of a logical leap for Fjord to make, and she was known for making logical leaps. But then again, Jester was right about most things. “You’re probably right,” she agreed.

They found the modestly sized Chanukah decoration section. The selection was much more limited than their options for Christmas decorations, but they found some string lights shaped like menorahs and dreidels and several packages of shiny blue and silver stars to attach to the walls. They also found a set of figurines of superheroes wearing Chanukah sweaters, which of course they bought because no one was there to stop them.

After purchasing everything and packing themselves onto the metro with their overflowing shopping bags (the metro was fairly crowded and they received lots of dirty looks for taking up the space of several people), they realized they only had about half an hour before their housemates started arriving home.

As they unlocked the front door, Jester turned to Nott, expression urgent. “Okay, I’ll take care of decorating the inside, because I can do it really fast. You go up to the attic and wrap the outdoor lights around the widow’s watch, okay? And then when you finish, come down to the yard and put more of them on the fences and the bushes.”

“Got it, boss!” Nott affirmed. They then spent about ten minutes frantically trying to unearth the outdoor lights from among their bags.

Twenty minutes later, both Jester and Nott had collapsed onto the rug in the living room, sticky with sweat and breathing heavily. The house looked like a department store the week before Christmas. Everything was draped in sparkling lights, shiny colored baubles, and garlands of evergreen branches, with fake LED candles on every windowsill, plastic decals on every wall, and tacky statuettes on every horizontal surface. Except for the figurine of Superman wearing a Star of David sweater, which Nott clutched against her chest.

The door clicked as it unlocked. Jester groaned. “Ugh, I was going to hide, but I don’t even want to move…”

Caleb walked in, peering at the two of them in bemusement. Then he glanced around at the decor. “...Wow,” he said, arching an eyebrow.

Jester sat up fast as a shot. “Do you love it?”

“Do you know? I actually do,” he said, surprising Nott. “Did the two of you do all of this on your own?”

“Yes, in the last twenty minutes!” Jester said excitedly.

“That seems… unrealistic.”

“You underestimate our powers,” Jester replied haughtily, slinging an arm around Nott’s shoulders. (She was still really sweaty but Nott didn’t mind.)

“Oh!” Nott exclaimed. She ran up to Caleb and handed the Superman figurine to him. “I got this for you myself,” she informed him proudly.

“No, you didn’t, I bought those,” Jester pouted.

“No, you bought all the other ones,” Nott told her. “I bought this one specifically.”

Both Jester and Caleb stared at her dubiously. “Okay, fine, I stole it,” she relented, prompting a chuckle from Caleb.

“Thank you, spatz, I like it very much,” he said, smiling warmly and dropping a kiss on her head. Jester was beaming so much, her face looked like it was going to split in two.

“Would you ladies like some tea? I have peppermint flavor now,” Caleb asked.

“Ooh, yes, please,” Jester said, skirts flouncing as she hopped off the floor. “I need a reward after all that hard work I did for this family.”

The family part was a joke, Nott knew, but she took Jester’s hand anyway. Caleb slipped the Superman figure in his pants pocket as he removed his coat, hanging it on the rack. He unwrapped his rain-damp scarf and shook it at Nott so that cold droplets sprayed her face. “Hey!” she yelled, reaching forward to pinch his side. He laughed, dodging out of the way as Jester picked up Nott. Nott’s arms windmilled helplessly as Jester spun her away from Caleb, giggling. “I’m going to throw you!” she squealed. “Let me at him!” Nott shrieked.

Within the next hour, half of the string lights fell down because they hadn’t been hung properly, but Caleb helped them put them back up. He placed the Superman figure on his nightstand next to his bed. Nott couldn’t stop herself from smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates might be slightly erratic in the next couple weeks because it's final exams season!
> 
> EDIT: one of my other fics features trans Jester and today I received a long angry comment from a terf, so I just want to put it out there that if you consider yourself a terf and/or have any kind of negative or prejudicial beliefs about trans people, my content is not for you and please kindly take your leave!


	44. Chapter 44

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got another one for ya ;D

“Would you like some marshmallows, babe?”

Yasha held out her mug expectantly. 

It was after midnight. Beau had just gotten home from the end-of-quarter recital for the students at the dojo - an odd name for an event where the students essentially took turns showing off the moves they’d learned in the past three months to a room of politely clapping parents sitting in folding chairs, laps laden with discarded jackets and printer-paper programs with only a few typos. The dojo wasn’t very big - pretty much just a spacious ground-floor area with exercise mats laid out on the floor and a few concrete columns obstructing the mirror-lined walls, with a small reception desk and a bathroom, closet-sized changing area, and smaller-than-closet-sized storage closet. However, they were planning to expand to a larger locale as soon as they could find someone who was qualified to teach aikido. Dairon had also been talking about buying a van to pick up their students who went to the nearby K-8 School, although that depended on whether Bryce the accountant thought it was a good idea.

Most of Beau’s students were children younger than thirteen whose parents wanted them to use up some of their seemingly unlimited physical energy outside the house and also be a part of an activity that they could potentially include on some kind of application (two birds with one stone). There were additionally a handful of adults who were looking for a fun way to stay active and learn a new skill. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough adults to justify fitting special classes for them into the schedule, so Beau’s classes were all-ages. Perhaps the best part of her day involved watching ten-year-old blue-belts brimming with hyperactive energy and unearned confidence launch brutal attacks on nervous and slightly self-conscious thirty-four-year-old yellow-belts. But they were all her students and she loved them. Begrudgingly. At the end of the recital, she gave them all mini potted poinsettias from Caduceus’s garden. “What am I supposed to do with a stupid plant?” yelled a particularly belligerent six-year-old. “It’s poison, kid,” she’d informed him. “If you can’t think of a move, just get your opponent to eat it.”

“Careful, he might actually try that,” chuckled his mother as he gasped in awe. Beau winked at her. If this was months ago, she might have indulged herself in a bit of casual flirting, maybe even a questionably platonic drink after hours. But at the moment, all she could think about was the person waiting for her at home. Too bad she cared about her students too much to leave before having a brief chat with every set of parents and guardians. Stupid caring-about-people. When had this become her life?

It was eleven pm before all the students and their families went home. Beau hugged more children on a single night than she’d probably hugged over the course of the rest of her previous life. Then she had to stay for a half hour more to help Dairon and the other teachers clean up all the tinsel they’d draped on the water cooler and the stacks of foam armor. “Why did we do this shit?” she groaned, unwinding a cheap fake-pinecone garland from one of the concrete columns.

“Because it’s fucking festive,” Dairon growled, glaring at her.

‘There’s Frost on the Moon’ by Artie Shaw played in her earbuds as she walked home through the dark, cold, windy night. Yasha would like this song, she thought to herself. Yasha loved sentimental, jazzy songs from the first half of the twentieth century - the kind you might slow-dance to with your honey who’d just gotten home from the western front as snow fell softly outside the windows. 

After unlocking the door, she let out a contented sigh. Beau generally hated holiday decorations of any kind so she’d loudly complained for days after seeing the house once Jester and Nott had had their way with it, but even she had to admit there was something a bit magical about the house at night after everyone had gone to bed. Everything was dark and quiet, but the mini christmas tree and some of the twinkle lights were still plugged in, bathing the empty living room and dining area in a dreamy purple-red glow. Even though there was no one to be seen, there was something inexplicably warm about the atmosphere - you could just tell that people had been there recently, and would be there again soon.

Well, one person was still there presently. Yasha leaned against the kitchen counter, contentedly staring at the stupid little model of a gingerbread house Jester had placed on top of the fridge. Yasha absolutely looked more like something out of a holiday fairy tale than any of Jester’s decor. Her hair cascaded gently away from her face, let loose from its typical half-up half-down hairstyle because she was dressed for bed. Even in her relatively normal-looking flannel pajama pants and gray tank top (which was very figure-hugging, it should definitely be noted) she was ethereally beautiful, like a fae princess who had wandered into the human world. The dim, refracted creamy-gold light from Jester’s fake candles warmed her pale face, bringing out the smudgy lines of her cheekbones, her long nose, her almond eyes. Her lips were relaxed, just curving shadows, unfocused like she’d been drawn with pastels. She blinked and Beau’s heart forgot to beat.

Beau swallowed. She was going to have to stop staring at Yasha’s lips so much because it was going to get embarrassing pretty fast.

Beau had approached her and asked if she’d wanted hot cocoa, and that was how they’d ended up here, with Beau sprinkling tiny marshmallows in Yasha’s mug and trying not to utterly lose her shit because dammit, Yasha was standing so close to her and looking in her eyes and it was so dark and goddamn magical in here and everyone else in the house was asleep and it felt like they were in a dream and anything could happen here, anything could happen.

Beau was totally going to kiss her. It wasn’t even an issue of whether she wanted to or not - it just felt so inevitable, like she was being compelled by some greater mystical force. A goddess of lesbianism, perhaps. (Was that a thing? Probably. She’d look it up on Wikipedia later.)

“How was your day, my beautiful?” Yasha asked.

Beau’s face flushed. Yasha hadn’t yet gotten the hang of English pet names, but somehow her quirky amalgamations and attempts were so much more swoon-inducing than any of the tried-and-tested classics.

“I’m, uh, it was good,” she replied awkwardly, glancing down. Sometimes Yasha looked at her with so much naked adoration on her face that it was difficult to maintain eye contact. It wasn’t that she was overwhelmingly enthusiastic or overcome with effusive emotion; Yasha’s expressions were subtle and gentle, just like every other aspect of Yasha (besides her muscles, maybe). But Beau knew her well enough now to see the depths of fondness that shone in even just a slight Yasha smile with an ever-so-tilted head, and it was so potent, like standing close to a fire.

She told Yasha about the recital, absently swirling her cocoa in her mug to cool it down. Yasha laughed happily as she described the funny things her younger students had said to her, and Beau’s heart swelled almost uncomfortably. Making Yasha laugh felt like a disproportionately massive accomplishment to her. She wanted to call her mom and tell her about it. (She’d told her mom she had a girlfriend over the phone last week. “A white girl?” she’d responded, sounding somewhat put out. At least she was cool with the ‘girl’ part.)

“How was your day, though, babe?” Beau asked, stepping away from the counter and then leaning against it again, closer to Yasha this time so that their hips were touching. Classic move.

Yasha smiled and tilted her head so that their faces were close enough that Beau could smell Yasha’s shampoo. It seemed like no matter how smooth Beau tried to be, Yasha kept killing the flirting game without even appearing to try. How did I score this girl, Beau asked herself, like she did nearly every day.

“It was very nice. I just went to Jester’s classes with her, and then she wanted to bake cookies and decorate them. Nott wanted to help. I put all of Nott’s cookies in the back of the fridge, though, because I find them rather upsetting to look at. You can take a look at them if you want, though.”

“I’m good, I think,” Beau replied, smiling despite herself.

Even though Nott was a little shit, Beau became fonder of her every day. It was also nicer than she’d expected to randomly meet another person from her tribe. She’d grown up almost entirely surrounded by Navajo folks and if she wanted to talk to about a dozen of her neighbors for a few minutes at a time over the phone, all she had to do was call her mom again and ask "how everyone is doing”. Sometimes she forgot how isolating it was to live in a city where no one else shared her cultural background. Well, that probably wasn’t accurate - statistically, there had to be other Navajo people in San Francisco. But she didn’t know any of them so she couldn’t sit at the dining room table with them after work and chat with them in her language, face-to-face. To be fair, she still couldn’t really do that with Nott either because calling Nott’s command of Navajo “conversant” was extremely generous. But Beau had been taking care to occasionally shoot comments at her while they were cooking dinner or cleaning the bathroom, and she’d definitely improved over the past couple months. Of course, if Jester heard them talking in Navajo, she always began loudly talking to Yasha in Russian, often saying things that made Yasha glance at Beau and blush.

Which brought her back to the present situation. Which was that her stunningly beautiful, kind, caring, sweet, intelligent, tall, so fucking tall, and so fucking beautiful, did she mention the beautiful part, girlfriend was standing next to her and Beau wanted to kiss her so badly she thought her head might explode.

Yasha placidly took a sip of cocoa, humming at the taste. Beau wanted to scream.

Yasha turned to her as if she’d just thought of something mildly interesting. “Oh -”

“I want kiss?!” Beau burst out.

Yasha just looked at her, expression unchanging. Beau could practically see the cogs turning in her head as she, doubtless, struggled to work out whether her English was failing her again. Letting out a slightly hysterical laugh, Beau clasped her (very strong) bicep, rubbing her thumb up and down on Yasha’s silky skin. “I just meant - God, I was trying to say ‘I want to kiss you’ and ‘can we kiss?’ at the same time. I’m kind of a dumbass, if you haven’t, like, clocked that by now.”

Yasha’s face cleared. “Oh! I understand.”

Beau quirked an eyebrow, peering coyly up at her girlfriend. “So… what’s the answer?”

Yasha smiled shyly, and it looked like a sunrise. “Yes, of course.”

Heart soaring, Beau grinned and leaned in slowly, tilting her head. But Yasha stopped her with a light touch to the clavicle.

“What is it, baby?” Beau murmured, worried. They were close enough now that she could effectively murmur.

Yasha cast her eyes down, lashes fluttering. “It’s just - I haven’t kissed anyone in a very long time. And I worry that I’m not the most good at it anymore, you know?”

“It’s okay, babygirl, I haven’t either. I think it’s kind of like riding a bike, maybe? Once you know how to do it, it’s hard to stop knowing it.”

Yasha looked dubious, lips twitching with the hint of a laugh.

“Okay, maybe I don’t really know,” Beau admitted, chuckling a little herself. “But, like… even if you’re the worst kisser ever. Even if you slobber all over me. Even if you, like, keep your lips sealed super tight and don’t move them at all. Even if our teeth clack together. I wouldn’t care. For me, it’s not about the kiss. It’s about you. I’d enjoy it not because of any physical aspect of it, but because it’s me kissing you, and you’re amazing, and the fact that I get to fucking kiss you is amazing. You understand?” She used one hand to tip Yasha’s chin towards her and then laid it against Yasha’s warm cheek, thumb carefully sweeping along the delicate skin below her eye. “Babe. I want you to know that I would be totally fucking honored to die because you choked me with your tongue, as long as I get to kiss you.”

Yasha’s bicolored eyes crinkled as she laughed. And then she kissed Beau. And Beau was right; it was amazing. Yasha was a much better kisser than she’d made herself out to be, but even if that wasn’t the case, it was still about Yasha, and kissing Yasha for the first time was maybe the one of glorious highlights of Beau’s two and a half decades or so of life. She felt powerful enough to destroy the world and create a new one. She felt like she was made of supernovas and galaxies and planets glittering with undiscovered elements. She felt like the goddess of lesbianism. (It had to be a thing, right?)

Yasha lightly bit her lip and Beau barely stopped herself from letting out an embarrassing moan. She sank one hand into Yasha’s hair, cupping the side of her head, and used the other to grip Yasha’s strong waist, slowly wrapping around her and sliding up her back. Deepening the kiss and licking at the tender roof of Yasha’s mouth, she carefully but firmly pinned her against the counter, boxing her in as she moved her mouth to the sensitive skin where Yasha’s jawline met her ear. Yasha rested her head back against the cabinet and let out an intoxicated breath, her fingers tightly gripping Beau’s shoulder. Beau smiled against her neck. She may have been kind of awkward and dorky during the early stages of courting, but that was because her skills were heavily concentrated in the “making out” stages of courtship. And oh, she could not wait to show Yasha everything she could do.

Their hot cocoa was probably getting cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *eyes emoji*


	45. Chapter 45

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: I probably won't have time to write as much because I'll be studying for finals!  
> Me actually: *writes even more to distract myself from the stress of finals*

“What are your intentions with my brother?” said a scratchy voice from behind Molly’s back.

“To care for him and adore him and make him a very happy man,” he replied smoothly, not missing a beat. He finished hanging up a stocking above the old marble hearth that had been converted into a TV niche. Caduceus had made them the other day, stitching the name of a house member into each one. They were comprised of fabric from clothing that Molly had very charitably given up after realizing he’d forgotten he owned it. Fjord’s name was missing a J and Beau’s name was simply spelled “Bo”. He briefly debated telling Caleb that Molly had made his, but Caleb would probably see right through it, given how vocally Molly had complained the other week about having to repair a loose button on his velvet peacoat.

Molly peered over his shoulder, quirking an eyebrow at his least favorite seventeen-year-old. Okay, his favorite. He would never tell her, though. At least not until she gave him back the Swarovski earrings she’d nicked from his vanity. How many times would he have to passive-aggressively lament their absence within her earshot and make loud remarks like “How silly of me! I never lose things!” It was such an obvious lie, anyway. He lost things pretty much constantly.

Nott squinted at him. She was still wearing her button-encrusted backpack, indicating she must have just gotten home from school. (Was it not winter break for her yet? Pity.) He must not have heard her enter the living room; he’d been blasting Beyonce for the last hour. Sadly, he opened his phone and turned off ‘Baby Boy’.

“Are you planning on marrying him?” Nott asked suspiciously.

“Uh…I…” Molly stammered, nervously toying with one of his cartilage piercings. He was seasoned enough by now to be unfazed by Nott’s sudden appearances in rooms and evident inability to exhibit any kind of preamble before jumping directly into whatever conversation she wanted to have, but he hadn’t yet learned how to prepare himself for her hard-hitting questions. “Uh… do you… want me to… not marry him…?” he asked awkwardly. Dammit, turning the question back on the asker was such an overused tactic during an interrogation. He needed to get better at this.

Nott folded her arms, over-long sweater sleeves dangling from her sides. “Do YOU want to marry him?”

“I…” Molly ran his hand through his curls, which were mostly black now, especially since he’d trimmed them earlier that month. He really needed to get around to dying them, but he’d been so distracted lately. “Does he know you’re asking me this? What are you getting at here?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what to expect,” Nott replied archly.

Ah. That made sense. Caleb was her sole guardian; the presence of a fairly serious romantic partner was probably something new for her.

“I promise I won’t hurt him at all,” he told her kindly. “I won’t even tease him. That much.”

“Oh, I don’t care if you tease him,” she snickered. “He needs to be teased, it prevents him from, like, wearing the same pair of pants every other day for two years. He has to be kept on his toes.”

Molly chuckled, adjusting Caduceus’s stocking. “What are you asking me, then?”

“I just want to know… if you’re here to stay.”

Molly’s hands stilled on the stocking’s flannel edging. He took a deep breath - lungs filling with the warm living room air, smelling of cinnamon from Jester’s christmassy air freshener.

Slowly, he turned around, and knelt so his brown eyes were level with Nott’s green ones. “I am here to stay. I promise.” It felt like he was promising himself as much as her. The situation was eerily reflective of a dream he sometimes had where he was confronted by an angry teenage version of himself. “Why should we be us?” himself would scream. “Because we’re good,” he’d reply. Or started to, eventually. “I promise.”

Nott nodded. She looked rather relieved, which made Molly feel immensely fond of her. Until she said, “So should I tell Caleb you want to marry him, then?”

“What? No! Why on earth would you do that?”

“Don’t you want him to know?” Nott asked, faux-sweetly.

“No - listen, you don’t get it. You can’t say things like that to him! We’ve been together barely three months!” he hissed, patting her bony shoulder repeatedly.

Nott smiled angelically. “Should I tell him you don’t want to marry him, then?”

“No, of course not! Just don’t - why do you have to talk about marriage at all? Are you writing a report on this or something? Just don’t bring it up. It’s very easy to not bring marriage up in conversation! I myself was planning on not bringing it up until you did.”

Nott shrugged. “Suit yourself. Hey, where’s mine?” she asked, gesturing at the stockings.

He pointed at one made of green paisley. Which read “Not” in embroidered emerald cursive.

She stared at it for a moment. Then whispered, “Can Caduceus read?”

Molly lightly yanked one of her braids. “Don’t be rude. Of course he can read. Functionally.”

“I’m glad he at least made all the stockings the same size even though I’m much smaller than you and everyone else.”

“Well, don’t sell yourself short -” Molly dithered.

“No, I AM short, I know it,” she interrupted. “And I don’t mind. It means I can sneak into a tiny spaces where you guys can’t fit. And it makes it much easier to steal things.”

Molly glared at her, arms akimbo. “Things like my Swarovski earrings, perhaps.”

Nott gave him a Look. “I know you want to think I stole them because it makes you feel better about the fact that you lost them, but I swear to god you actually did lose them. I already gave back all the shit I stole from you!”

“Language,” Molly muttered.

Nott ran her fingers over the other stockings, feeling the textures of the other fabrics. “Do you celebrate Christmas?” she asked, apropos of nothing.

He thought it over. “I mean, I guess so? My Da is Catholic, but he didn’t raise me, so I was never involved in the religion much. And my mum is Hindu, technically, I think. We did some of the holidays like Diwali and such but we never went to temple or anything. I’m not sure if she actually believes in the faith or if she’s just more of a cultural practitioner.”

“So… are you expecting a Christmas present?”

Ah, that’s where she’d been going with that. “If you don’t get me a present, I shall never speak to you again,” he told her gravely.

“Okay, Bossy,” she scoffed.

“I’m kidding, you don’t have to get me anything. But I’m going to get you something, whether you like it or not. And everyone else, too.”

“Caleb?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Of course, Caleb, don’t be ridiculous.”

She grinned. “Are you getting him two presents, then? Because his birthday is this weekend. People always get him one present and blend them together, and he’s fine with it allegedly, but I think if you really care about him you should get him two.”

Molly eyed her suspiciously. “Are you taking the piss? He didn’t tell me his birthday is this weekend.”

“Of course he didn’t. He claims not to care about his birthday. He’s turning twenty-nine anyway; he probably doesn’t want everyone to know how old he really is.”

“He’s not THAT old,” Molly said. Come to think of it, he did vaguely remember playing twenty questions with Caleb at some point and finding out that his birthday was this weekend. “Well, if you’re truly not bullshitting me, you’d better help me come up with a good gift. Two good gifts.”

“Language,” Nott admonished him, smirking. “And I have the perfect idea. It’s something he’s been talking about for a really long time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


	46. Chapter 46

iMessage  
11:57 am

Jester: Hi Oskar [smiley face with hearts emoji]  
Jester: Are you ready for our vary special activity today? [wink emoji]

12:31 pm  
Fjord: I guess so. -Fjord

Jester: Aww Oskar don’t be shy! [sparkly heart emoji] I promise it’s vary easy! Just sit still and I’ll do all the work!

Fjord: I spose im just nervous. Its my first time doin anything like this. -Fjord

Jester: Well don’t worry at all! It’s vary vary fun! [heart wrapped with bow emoji]

Fjord: What will You be usin g ? -Fjord

Jester: I think oil pastels will be perfect for your warm coloring! On a nice big foam board so you can use it to decorate the house [heart eyes emoji] [paint palette emoji]

Fjord: Don know that i will be usin it to decorate. Seems a bitt Much. -Fjord

Jester: I’ll keep it in my room then [smirk emoji] [eyes emoji]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> entirely inspired by that sneak peek of the pinup calendar ;)


	47. Chapter 47

An orange tabby tomcat with green-gold eyes blinked owlishly at Caleb, who hesitantly held out his fingers for the animal to sniff. Slowly and carefully, the cat padded forward and crept to a crouched position, all the while watching Caleb appraisingly. After a tense standoff, the cat gently bumped its head against Caleb’s knuckles and Caleb very narrowly prevented himself from destroying the moment by pumping his fist in elation or doing something equally disruptive and humiliating.

Several minutes later, Molly said, “I take it you’re liking this one, darling?” and Caleb actually did startle quite a bit because he’d completely forgotten he was there. Well, not forgotten, because it would be very rude to forget that your boyfriend was standing next to you. But he’d been extremely distracted by the fact that the cat was now ON HIS LAP. And, glory of all glories, it was still there, even though Caleb had jumped a bit! It was still sitting there, a warm and soft and comfortable mass, fixing him with an annoyed stare, but there nonetheless, and Caleb wanted to cry with happiness. Well, maybe that was a bit dramatic. But he was very happy. Oh, his boyfriend was waiting for him to say something, wasn’t he? “Yes, I do, Liebling,” he said quickly. He continued stroking the cat’s marmalade fur, suitably awestruck.

Finally, he glanced over at Molly, who was gazing at him, head tilted to one side, with such a truly embarrassingly ardent expression that he needed to break eye contact almost immediately. “I think I am going to get this one,” Caleb said.

Molly smiled and rubbed the cat’s ears. “Okay. What are you going to name him?”

“I think the adoption sheet said his name is Pumpkin.”

Molly twisted his lips. “That’s such an unoriginal name for an orange cat, don’t you think? When you take him to the vet, the receptionist will call out ‘Ready for Pumpkin!’ and seven different people will get up.”

Caleb laughed. “Okay, how about Frumpkin, then?”

“I like that. It’s very cute. Like you.” Molly rubbed his hand up and down Caleb’s tricep. “Let’s adopt him then, shall we?”

They filled out the paperwork and picked up a carrying cage for Frumpkin (it was only a little bit impossible to convince him to go inside it). And then they stopped by a nearby pet store to get a litterbox and some food and bowls for food and water and lots of toys and pretty much everything else the helpful teenage salesclerk told them to get. Caleb usually didn’t like to buy a lot of things all at once but he felt like he was in a trance.

As they walked home, Molly carried the bag of new items and Caleb held Frumpkin’s cage in one hand and Molly’s hand in the other. He smiled at Molly, heart swelling with adoration. “Thank you for taking me to a cat adoption event. It’s the absolute perfect gift.”

Molly kissed him on the cheek. “Happy birthday, dearest.”

“Are you sure I’m not too old for you now?”

“Don’t be silly, we’re practically the same age. We’ll move into a retirement home together, I’m sure,” Molly joked, and then his expression turned to dismay as he realized he’d inadvertently said something presumptuous. He cast his eyes down, biting his lip. “Ah, what I mean is that-”

“Liebling,” Caleb interjected quickly. He cleared his throat, taking a deep breath to brace himself. He felt he was on the edge of a precipice that he’d never dared to even look past before, and now he was about to hurl himself off of it. It was terrifying but also thrilling. The freefall was dangerous to be sure but what lay beyond? He wanted to find out. “I need to tell you something.”

Molly glanced up at him through his eyelashes, lips parting slightly.

“I love you,” Caleb said. It was funny; the buildup was so intense, but in the moment itself he felt calm as an island in a smooth sea.

Caleb knew he’d made the right decision as soon as he saw the brilliant sunny grin break across Molly’s face. Now he wished he had said it earlier just to see that smile before now.

He didn’t have time to think about much of anything else because Molly immediately assaulted him with an aggressive hug and began peppering every part of his face with desperate kisses. “Please be careful, Schatz, I am still holding a cat,” he managed through laughter.

“Oh, I love you too! I forgot to say that right away,” Molly said, pausing in his attack.

“It’s quite all right, I think I gathered your meaning nonetheless.”

“Let’s hurry home right away,” Molly insisted, somehow managing to speak while also attempting to suck on Caleb’s neck - even more impressive because Caleb was wearing a heavy woolen scarf.

“Yes, let’s,” Caleb replied, patting Molly’s back. “My love,” he added, winking as Molly looked up at him. Molly looked like he’d won a prize.

They continued to walk home, Molly skipping and swinging Caleb’s hand and trying to get Caleb to sing pop songs with him but then feigning affront when Caleb didn’t know all the lyrics.

“Maybe you ARE too old for me,” Molly exclaimed in mock horror after Caleb couldn’t sing any lines beyond ‘feel the rain on your skin’.

“I think I’m just too much of a geek for you,” Caleb replied, chuckling. “If we met in high school, I am sure you would have been out of my league.”

“Oh, think again, dear. I was a theater kid. I’m sure our groups would have been different but we were certainly in the same tier.”

“Would we have ever gotten past our differences, though?”

“I can’t say the same for High School Me, but Current Me is very willing to make concessions EVEN when it comes to the greatest hits of the 2000’s.”

“And we all applaud your openness.”

“Oh, I’m open to all sorts of things,” Molly smirked, tone sultry.

“You quit that, we’re not home yet,” Caleb said, playfully hitting him in the thigh with their joined hands. “Speaking of which… did you ask Beau or Fjord permission to have a cat in the house?”

“Uh… No…”

They stared at each other sheepishly. Molly’s lips twitched. Caleb held in a snort. Then they both burst out laughing, Molly doubling over and resting his head on Caleb’s chest. One of his barrettes dug rather painfully into his pectoral muscle, but Caleb didn’t mind. He felt like his body was made of captured sunlight.

“It’s probably fine, right?” Molly said. “Like, it’s whatever.”

“Ja, it’s probably fine.”

Frumpkin meowed in apparent agreement. Everything was completely, totally fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D


	48. Chapter 48

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to knock out a bunch of these chapters because I wanna finish this fic around new years :)

“I have something to show you.”

Beau arched a curious eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What do you have to show me… in your bedroom?”

Yasha laughed softly at the suggestiveness in her tone. “It’s not anything like that.”

Holding Beau’s hand, she led her across the hardwood floor, splashed with watery morning sunlight. Jester was downstairs watching TV with Molly; in her absence the room was quiet and peaceful, devoid of its usual bubblegum pop soundtrack and hummingbird levels of movement.

Yasha gestured at the collage of posters, cards, notes, art prints, promos, and old sketches haphazardly taped to the wall above and between her and Jester’s beds (one of them all-white and neatly made, the other a riot of colorfully patterned blankets in a mountainously rumpled pile).

Beau peered in the direction of Yasha’s hand, face impassive. “What am I looking at, babe?” She turned to Yasha. “Are you telling me I should watch anime? Because I’ll do it. I’ll do it for you. If that’s what you need for this relationship to -”

“No, no - look.” She peeled it off the wall, the fold lines in the paper crackling gently as she held it. The drawing from all those months ago - Beau as Yasha had seen her by chance in the metro back when they’d both first moved to San Francisco. It seemed like it happened only a week ago, but also a decade ago at the same time. Yasha blushed seeing the pink flowers she’d added around the figure. How embarrassing - even back then she’d been smitten, apparently, without even realizing it.

Beau’s face was complicated as she looked at it; her hands shook very slightly as she slowly took it from Yasha.

“I made it when I was in class with Jester one time - one of the first classes I ever went to with her, actually. I hadn’t even met you yet. I just happened to see you in the metro, of all places. Jester already knew who you were by then so she insisted we keep it. I figured it’s high time I show it to you…” she trailed off as she noticed Beau’s eyes were sparkling with wetness. “Are you… all right?”

Beau sniffed loudly, wiping her nose on the back of her sleeve. (Yasha decided she found that endearing and not gross.) “I’m fine,” Beau said gruffly. “Really.”

Yasha stared at her dubiously. A teardrop rolled down Beau’s cheek and she rubbed it away in irritation. “Dammit…” she muttered.

Yasha waited another moment for her to speak, and when she didn’t, Yasha gingerly took one of her hands, clasping it in her own and squeezing it in reassurance. “What is it?” she asked quietly. “Have I upset you?” she continued, heart sinking. She very much hoped not; if she’d managed to upset Beau she might start crying herself.

Beau sniffed again, setting the drawing down on Yasha’s nightstand so she could wipe her eyes with her other hand. “Um… it’s just… no one’s ever done a drawing of me.”

Yasha tilted her head, brow furrowing. “Why not? You are so beautiful.”

At that, Beau let out a halting sob and lowered her head in shame. Yasha couldn’t help it anymore; she carefully wrapped her arms around Beau’s body and held her close against her chest. She looked so strong and sturdy, taut with lean muscle, but in Yasha’s arms she felt small, her head fitting neatly against the side of Yasha’s neck, loose hair tickling her nose. Yasha held her tighter.

For what felt like a very long time, they just stood there in the quiet room, Beau in Yasha’s arms, burying her face in Yasha’s shoulder, Yasha slowly rubbing one hand up and down her spine while the other still clutched Beau’s own hand against her chest.

Finally, Beau pulled her face away. Yasha looked down at her, and Beau leaned forward so that their foreheads met. They were like one of those arches that were able to stand because the two sides pressed against each other, holding each other in place; she’d learned that in an architecture seminar Jester had gone to once. Up this close, Yasha could see that Beau’s irises were a slightly different color on the outside than they were on the inside around the pupil.

Beau huffed out a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry for being so weird.”

“You’re not weird. I’m the weird one. Who draws someone they haven’t even met? You must think I’m a… what is the word? Stork?”

Beau laughed again, less nervous this time. “Stalker. And of course I don’t think that, sweetheart. Is that - do you think I’m upset because of that?” She sounded worried.

“Why are you upset, then?” Yasha asked, voice soft. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Or if you don’t know the answer.”

Beau’s lips formed a hint of a smile. “I think I do know the answer. I wasn’t always good at understanding why I’m upset, you know. But I think I’m getting better at it.”

“It helps to ask. Yourself, I mean.”

“I know. I think I just never really asked… anyway. I’m not upset right now, not really. I wasn’t lying about that. I’m happy, I guess.”

Yasha didn’t say anything, waiting for her to continue. Her thumb rubbed small circles on the one of the knobs of Beau’s backbone.

“No one ever has drawn me before. And people don’t call me beautiful, often. I don’t look like other girls. I think I just… didn’t really think of beauty as something that I could have. Maybe part of me thought I gave up on all that by giving up on, like. Looking like a normal girl and shit.”

“I understand that,” Yasha said. “I’m glad you don’t look like a normal girl. Although I would still like you no matter how you look. It’s just good luck that you happen to be very beautiful.”

“Thank you. So much. You really are - you’re the best. I think I just - I never thought I’d be cared for this much. Never thought I would have anything like this. I thought that I didn’t need it or expect it, but I guess part of me secretly did want it really badly, because that would explain why I feel so happy right now. And sad, too, maybe. Sad that we didn’t meet each other sooner.”

“I think we met at the right time. Earlier in my life I was very unhappy, and I had so much unhappiness in my head that there would have been no room for you. You would have had to squeeze in next to all of it. It would have been very uncomfortable.”

“I mean, I don’t know, I’m pretty flexible,” Beau smirked. “But I get your point. I think if you met me earlier you wouldn’t have liked me very much. I was kind of rude."

“Thank goodness that’s all over now.”

Beau laughed, leaning away from Yasha slightly and pinching her face in mock offense. “Excuse me, I am a delight! But yeah, no, ruder than I am now. Truly a piece of work. I honestly AM a delight compared to Past Beau.”

Yasha kissed her forehead. “You are a delight. No need to convince me.”

Beau smiled up at her. “Even though I get all that shit about meeting people at the right time or whatever… I still wish we had had more time together. I wish I knew earlier that I’d meet someone like you.”

“Why would we need more of the past, though? We have the rest of the future to spend together.”

“I guess… Yeah, you’re right. We do. Who needs the past, anyway?”

Yasha laughed at that. “Who needs it?”

Beau kissed her mouth, cupping her face in both hands and pouring so much intensity into the motion that Yasha bodily swayed backwards. She kissed Beau back, deeply, trying to express all of her feelings, all the ones that she didn’t know how to put into words.

Eventually Beau broke the kiss but she kept her face pressed close to Yasha’s, their eyelashes almost brushing. “I really want to tell you something. But I’m not ready to say it out loud,” she whispered, breath warming the corner of Yasha’s lips.

“I don’t mind waiting,” Yasha whispered, so softly that she knew Beau only heard it because of their proximity.

They kissed again. And then some more. And more.

Beau asked permission to hang the drawing on the wall of her own bedroom, and Yasha happily granted it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to you if you remembered the drawing existed!


	49. Chapter 49

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is 60k words! Whoa!! :0

The first thing Fjord had said as soon as Jester texted him about Caleb’s new cat was 'Im allergic to cats :('. Luckily he wasn’t making Caleb get rid of it, but he had instructed him to make sure it didn’t wander into his room, and upon finding out that it already had, he instructed Caleb to clean the room before he got home. He said he’d be willing to take allergy meds during the day but at night he just wanted to “be able to sleep in peace”.

Jester thought he was being very generous, but on the other hand, Caleb’s work shift extended later than Fjord's and so Caleb wouldn’t be able to clean it before he got home. Jester found out about this after waking up to a long text thread of complaints from Molly in the group chat they shared with Yasha. She immediately called Caleb. He picked up after three rings. “I’ll clean Fjord’s room for you if you clean me and Yasha’s room for two weeks!”

“That doesn’t seem like a fair deal…” his voice muttered through the tinny phone speaker. She could hear the sounds of students chatting quietly in the background.

“It’s my final offer, Caaaay-leb, take it or perish.”

He sighed heavily. “Fine, thank you Jester.”

“Thank YOU,” she trilled, hanging up the call.

“Yasha?” she yelled at the closed bathroom door, rolling out of bed. “Wanna help me clean Fjord’s room?”

Yasha didn’t question why Jester was cleaning Fjord’s room. That was a nice thing about Yasha - she never asked Jester to explain what was going on, like everyone else did nearly all the time. “I am in the middle of working out,” she called back, voice muffled through the door. “Are you all right doing it by yourself?”

“Uggghh, fiiiiiine,” Jester moaned. “It’s no fun, but I’ll deal with it.”

Pulling on a pair of lilac sweatpants over her lace-edged undies (they were day-of-the-week undies, and she always took care to wear them on the correct day), she opened the bathroom door, carefully stepping around Yasha (who was doing push-ups on the floor) to wash her face in the sink and then tie her hair up in two buns. “See ya later, Yash!” she said brightly, bounding out of the room. Yasha just grunted in acknowledgement as she completed another push-up.

Upon going downstairs and knocking insistently on Beau’s door, she realized that Beau was out running errands - well, technically she realized this after picking the lock on Beau’s door, checking under the bed and in the closet, finding a lot of very personal items (including a neon blue vibrator? She was definitely talking to Beau about that later) and then texting Beau repeatedly until she sent back a terse ‘busy rn sry’.

She already knew Molly was in class because he’d already texted the group chat - he always did that while he was in class because he got bored. Nott was at school, too. The only person who might be around was Caduceus.

“Caduuuuceuuuuus!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. She grinned with satisfaction. She loved it when there weren’t very many people home; she could yell as often and loudly as she wanted.

A few minutes later, a pink mop of hair poked around the door to the basement. “Yes?”

“Do you wanna help me clean Fjord’s room?”

Caduceus watched her for a beat, face tranquil and bemused. “Okay,” he said. “Let me put my slippers on.”

“Yay!” Jester skipped over to him, taking his hand as he closed the basement door, feet clad in fuzzy slippers.

“Let’s have some breakfast first!"

“That sounds like a good idea,” he replied. “I had breakfast with Beau earlier, but I’m hungry again.”

“I’m hungry, too,” Jester said, beaming. An idea struck her. “Oh! Do you want to make an egg scramble? Like, a gigantic one with everything we can find?”

“That sounds perfect! What could go wrong?”

They found a mostly-full carton of eggs in the fridge and used all of them, as well as the last of the milk and the majority of the vegetables - some of which were labeled with Post-it notes indicating that they belonged specifically to other people, but Jester figured it was okay. ‘We need more groceries,’ she texted Beau. Beau sent back a middle finger emoji.

“This is the best food I’ve ever eaten,” Jester told Caduceus very seriously after they finished - well, as serious as a person could sound with their mouth full of fried egg and sauteed spinach.

“Me too. I think all food is the best I’ve ever eaten, though,” he said, taking a bite from his own plate.

“Really? Have you never had any food that you thought was bad?”

Caduceus thought about it, cupping his chin in his hand. “No,” he answered simply, and then went back to eating.

“That’s lucky. I’ve eaten some pretty gross food before. One time I got a bear claw from this bakery and it didn’t even have cinnamon!” Jester peered past Caduceus at the kitchen. In which every horizontal surface was covered in used dishes and the scrappy remains of chopped vegetables and utensils covered in various combinations of ingredients. She pulled her phone out of her sweatpants pocket. ‘Kitchen needs cleaning,’ she texted to Beau.

‘I fuking hate u,’ Beau texted back. ‘No u don’t <3,’ from Jester. There was no answer, but Jester knew she was right.

“Are you ready to begin?” Jester asked Caduceus.

He smiled at her, scraping his plate over the compost bin. “Yes.”

Jester cocked her head to one side. “Don’t you want to know why we’re doing this?”

Caduceus shrugged. “Do you want to tell me?”

“Okay. It’s because Caleb got a cat and Fjord is allergic to cats and the cat has been in Fjord’s room already.”

“Oh. Okay.” Caduceus walked over to the hall closet and pulled out the bin of cleaning supplies. He yanked a pair of rubber gloves over his hands. Jester skipped down the corridor to Fjord’s bedroom door and threw it open.

She stared at it for a moment, then glanced over her shoulder at Caduceus, dismayed. “It’s so depressing in here!”

“Let me see.” He stood behind her, looking over head into the room (literally over her head - he was a solid foot taller than her).

She gazed up at him. His expression fell in dismay just as hers had. “You’re right, it is pretty depressing in here!”

It was. The walls were blank and off-white, as were the curtains, and the doors to the closet and the ensuite bathroom, and the duvet, and the mat on the floor that passed for a rug. Every object that Jester could see was purely functional - laptop, charging cables, humidifier, water filter, stack of paperwork, pens, dumbbell set, discarded laundry. Even the mug on his bedside table was boring! It was just dark green - no fun design on it or anything. The only splash of color was the portrait Jester had done the other day, leaning against one wall. It was really a beautiful piece, the light and shadow displaying Fjord’s muscular body in all its beautiful, mostly-naked glory (he’d insisted on wearing boxer briefs, which were a boring shade of charcoal).

Jester placed her hands on her hips. “This simply will not do.”

“He needs at least one plant in here,” Caduceus added, sounding more concerned than she’d ever heard him sound.

“How can you be sure he won’t forget to water them?”

Caduceus thought about it. “I’ll sneak in when he’s not there and water them myself.”

“What if he does water them, and then they get watered too much?”

“I’ll be able to tell if they’ve already been watered.”

“Okay,” Jester shrugged. “Well, let’s clean first, and then we can decorate!”

Jester played a Carly Rae Jepsen mix on her phone and they got to work. They scrubbed the floor, the desktop, the shelves, the windowsills, all the surfaces in the bathroom, even the ceiling (Caduceus was tall enough to reach it). Caduceus made the bed while Jester picked up items off the floor and stowed them in random locations, and then Caduceus washed the windows while Jester reorganized the closet (sadly not finding any sex toys that she could easily identify).

The bedroom did look a lot brighter and happier when they were done. But it was still missing that special something. “Let’s go get some plants,” she instructed Caduceus.

They lined the windowsills with tiny potted cacti and placed ivy and ferns on the bookshelves. Caduceus went out to the backyard and cut some flowers to put in a vase for his bedside table, and Jester rummaged through the garden shed to find a hammer and a nail that they could use to hang a spider plant from the ceiling.

“Are you sure we’re allowed to do this?” Caduceus asked, already in the middle of hammering a nail into the ceiling of Fjord’s room. He didn’t even need a ladder.

“It’s probably fine,” Jester shrugged. “Next, I need you to help me hang this portrait up,” she said, pulling a handful of more nails out of her sweatpants pocket. “Oh wait, he said he didn’t want it in his room… I did say I was going to keep it in mine. But. Hmm. I think everyone should see it, don’t you?”

Caduceus looked at it appraisingly. “I agree. It’s very good.”

“Thank you,” Jester preened. “But Fjord deserves some credit. He’s the one with the amazing sexy bod after all.”

“It is a pretty good ‘bod’.”

“We need to decorate in here somehow, though… Oh, I know! I’ll just put some of my other art pieces in here!” She dropped the nails on the floor and hurried out the door. “Don’t step on those,” she yelled back at Caduceus.

When she returned, Caduceus had thankfully not stepped on any nails. He had, in fact, hung the portrait in the hallway near Fjord’s room, and it looked incredible. Jester took a photo on her phone and sent it to Yasha and Molly. ‘Will you do one of those of Caleb?’ Molly immediately texted.

They spent the next hour taping art prints to the walls. Jester selected a variety of blue-and-green watercolors to create an aquatic atmosphere, because she knew Fjord loved the ocean. She interspersed them with some pencil and charcoal sketches of en plein air scenery, as well as a self-portait she’d done in chalk pastels last year. It was an excellent piece of work, and, well - she also looked excellent in it.

“Oh, I think he’ll love that,” Caduceus commented as she hung it on the wall above his desk.

“Me too! Whenever he’s feeling stressed out about work or emails he can just look up and I’ll be right there! And he’ll be like ‘Thank you for supporting me, Jester, you are so pretty and wonderful, mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah,” she mimed kissing the portrait. Caduceus giggled.

Once she finished hanging the portrait, they both stood in the doorway and admired their work. It looked pretty fantastic - just like something out of an Ikea catalogue. Jester took lots more photos and sent them to Molly and Yasha. ‘Love it! But im fr abt that nude portrait, I'll pay u,’ Molly texted.

Jester giggled and pocketed her phone. She spun around and threw her arms around Caduceus’s lean frame, hugging him tightly. He seemed surprised, but placed his hands on her back, patting her gently.

“Thank you for your help! It’s perfect!” she exclaimed.

He smiled at her. “It really is.” He gestured at the Fjord portrait outside the door. “And you’re sure he won’t mind that being there?”

“I’m certain he’ll love it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hire jester as ur interior decorator 2020


	50. Chapter 50

Holiday s.  
Oskar Fjordssen  
Dec 15, 2019, 9:21 PM (3 hours ago)

To: You and 6 others

Hey guys we are doing some thing for the holidays. On chrismas we will give eachother presents. Please do not spend More than 20 dolars. Also Caddeucues and i are hosting a Yule ritual on thurs day if anyone wants to Join. Meet us inthe Back Yard at sunset. Don’t forget to buy chrismas presents.

Thx. Fjord.

Sent from my iPhone 4

RE: Holiday s.  
Jester Lavorre  
Dec 15, 2019, 11:47 PM (7 minutes ago)

To: You, Fjord and 5 others

OOOOH can we please do secret santa?????????? It it way less expensive bc we each only have to get one gift AND it is way more sexy bc of the SECRETS. >:3c I’ll write everyones names down and put them in a hat!!!!!

Sent from my iPhone X

RE: RE: Holiday s  
Beauregard Lionett  
Dec 15, 2019, 11:51 PM (3 minutes ago)

To: You, Fjord and 5 others

Fjord ur wiccan now???? Wat

Sent from my dick

RE: RE: RE: Holiday s  
Oskar Fjordssen  
Dec 15, 2019, 11:52 PM (2 minutes ago)

To: You and 6 others

Ya Cedauecueos got me in to it. I really feel a spiritual connextion to nature and the godess. Plus it is Fun to do the full Moon spells. Also jester ok, lets do Secret santa.

Fjord.

Sent from my iPhone 4

RE: RE: RE: RE: Holiday s  
Jester Lavorre  
Dec 15, 2019, 11:53 PM (1 minute ago)

To: You, Fjord and 5 others

GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!! I will get it started right away 8D

Sent from my iPhone X

RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Holiday s  
Caleb Widogast  
Dec 15, 2019, 11:54 PM (just now)

To: Fjord and 5 others

Why are we all emailing each other? Clearly everybody is home; we can all just go downstairs and talk. Also, Nott and I found a menorah at the bargain antique depot and so we will be lighting it and playing dreidel on the 23rd if anyone would like to accompany us. We will not be playing with actual money as my dear sister does not need any further reasons to relieve you of your pocket change.

Guten Nacht,  
Caleb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter this week! I know I said that I'm trying to finish this fic by new year's but that might've been overambitious lol. I will still try to post as many chapters as possible in the coming weeks so stay tuned! Have a great holiday season no matter what you celebrate! And if you don't celebrate anything, I hope you have a great few weeks anyway!


	51. Chapter 51

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is just a tiny bit late again! Hope the extra dose of fluffiness makes up for it. Also, full disclosure, I have no idea how much annual museum passes cost in San Francisco or if that's even a thing there! If you know better, just suspend your disbelief I guess lol

Beauregard Lionett, colloquially known as Beau, and Oskar Fjordssen, colloquially known as Fjord, had met each other approximately three times during their lives before they decided to move in together. It was less of an actual choice and more of an act of fate and faith; they were distant cousins, and their estranged relative had left them a house in San Francisco since they were the only two members of the family’s youngest generation. The house was a beautiful cream-colored Victorian confection with ivy crawling up the clapboard walls, colorful geraniums in the window boxes, a creaky porch swing, and even a widow’s watch from which one could stand and dramatically stare out at a spectacular view of San Francisco Bay.

It was in a fairly affluent neighborhood with a lot of other old homes, and Beau and Fjord certainly would never have dreamed of being able to afford it if they hadn’t inherited it directly from their great-uncle. They even more certainly would never have dreamed that within the next few months it would become populated with a motley host of eclectic characters who would start out as an array of inconveniences who at least contributed rent money (occasionally on time) but who would grow to become their closest friends, Beau’s girlfriend, and Fjord’s something-approximating-a-girlfriend.

Beau was tired of living in Albuquerque and Fjord was tired of living in east Texas, so this was the perfect opportunity to start a new chapter of life. Their branches of the family had never been close and so they didn’t know each other particularly well, but a brief phone call revealed that they were both athletes and for them that was enough of a connection to facilitate peaceful cohabitation. Truth be told, they hadn’t always gotten along perfectly – Fjord disagreed with Beau on whether or not it was “fine” to leave dishes out on the counter until you wanted to use them again instead of just putting them in the cabinets, and Beau disagreed with Fjord on whether or not it was important to use your own laundry detergent instead of secretly borrowing everyone else’s (in fact, Fjord thought that “secretly borrowing” was just stealing, but that was a whole other argument).

But when it came to the bigger things they saw eye-to-eye. They both agreed that it was important to take the day off work to go to Jester’s art showcase and take lots of dorky photos of them and their housemates standing next to enormous abstract paintings – particularly of Molly posing next to portraits and attempting to imitate the subject. They both agreed that helping Nott with her homework was the only way to get her to actually do it, and that even though they were both dubious about the existential value of homework it would make Caleb happy for Nott to finish it. (They also both agreed that doing small things to make Caleb happy was worth the faint smile on his scruffy face when he came home from a long review session.) Both of them learned quickly that when they bought new items for the house such as hand soap and Band-aids and HDMI cords and wall calendars, Jester would get excited if they were pink and/or featured pictures of animals, and Yasha would too but less loudly. Yasha also got quietly excited about being invited to the gym with Fjord and Beau (although this development severely hindered Beau’s ability to accurately remember how many reps she’d just done. Or her name).

They both knew Caduceus helped out in the kitchen because he found cooking soothing, and Molly helped out in the kitchen because he found helpfulness soothing. Caduceus loved being asked about his hometown in Northern California but Molly hated talking about LA. They both learned what kind of kombucha Caduceus preferred and all of Molly’s favorite wines, and that it was valuable to have some of each in the fridge even though they weren’t cheap and nobody else really drank them. Because eventually it became apparent that their tenants were paying them in more than money; they were paying them in companionship. Affection. That warm feeling they got when they did something nice for one of them and received a genuine smile in return. Love, maybe.

On Christmas day, everyone had the day off from work and class, and even though relatively few residents of the house actually celebrated the holiday with any degree of seriousness, they all gathered in the living room, squeezing onto Beau and Fjord’s great-uncle’s shimmery chintz sofas and worn-down imported rugs to exchange the presents they’d bought or made. Fjord lit Molly’s candles even though they didn’t shine very brightly in the daylight, and Beau let Yasha pick a playlist for Jester’s Bluetooth speaker (she immediately selected ‘Easy Living’ by Billie Holliday as the first song. She’d been on a real classic jazz kick lately).

Nott gave Fjord a belt with several dozen buttons inexpertly stitched onto it, promising that the only part she’d really stolen was the belt itself, and that the buttons were from art class at school so it wasn’t technically stealing. Fjord wanted to tell her off for shoplifting, but the idea of her diligently sewing buttons onto a leather belt every day in art class for multiple weeks and even taking the time to get better at stitching and finding needles that worked on leather was so endearing that he couldn’t even think of anything to say and simply encased her in an awkward side hug while trying to hide the fact that he was maybe a little choked up. Beau took a snapshot.

Fjord gave Yasha a crafting kit that she could use to make flower crowns with faux flowers and it was so spot-on that Beau was mildly annoyed she hadn’t thought of it. Well, she wasn’t THAT annoyed, because seeing the awestruck expression on Yasha’s face as she ran her hand over the plastic container of colorful silken blooms was more than worth it, as was the thrilled relief on her face when she noticed that the back of the box featured Russian instructions so she could make sure she was doing the project correctly.

Yasha had gotten a gift for Molly, fittingly enough. She’d borrowed extra fabric from when Caduceus had made the house stockings, and used it to fashion a quilted throw pillow. Each scrap of fabric was cut in the shape of a star or a heart or a blossom, and some of the less vibrantly printed ones were decorated with simple drawings she’d done in fabric pen of happy faces, dancing figures, or Molly-specific motifs like spread-out cards or glittery gems. “I wanted to show you how thankful I am that I met you,” she’d explained earnestly, and he’d instantly begun weeping openly and threw his arms around her neck.

Molly’s gift was for Beau. It was a set of loudly printed button-down shirts in saffron and vermillion and tropical-ocean blue and strawberry-cheesecake pink. “I think the bright colors will make you less grumpy,” he’d told her. “Or at least make your grumpiness easier for people to deal with because they can just look at your shirt and go to their happy place.” She knew it was a joke, but she also knew how meaningful the gift of clothing was from one gender-non-conforming person to another. She’d glared at him but then pulled him into a hug, muttering “Thanks, idiot” into his ear. “You’re welcome, dingus,” he’d whispered back.

Beau had bought a Caleb an annual pass to the museums in the city, at which he was absolutely thrilled. “Thought I’d get you a nerd gift. You know, since you’re, like, a major nerd,” she’d said, badly feigning neutrality. He stared at her searchingly. “Do you want to go with me to the museums, Beau?” he asked carefully. Slowly and sheepishly she pulled her own annual pass out of her jacket pocket. Everyone in the room laughed uproariously, which probably would have stung a few months ago, but Beau felt perfectly comfortable now. They were just seeing who she was and it made them happy, and there was nothing truly wrong with that. “I give you permission to go on museum dates with my boyfriend,” Molly piped up loftily. “Oh, fuck the fuck off, Mollymauk,” she yelled, taking off her socks and throwing them at his head as he dodged, giggling wildly.

Caleb’s had gotten a gift for Caduceus: a watering can shaped like a black-and-white spotted cow. Beau didn’t normally go in for things like that but even she had to admit it was very cute. Caduceus wrapped his arms around it like a baby and thanked Caleb profusely. (Jester clamored to have a turn to “look at it”.)

Caduceus then presented his gift to Jester, which was a set of makeup he’d apparently made out of herbal ingredients from the garden and from the local occult supply store, and some he’d asked his family to mail him from their farm because they were hard to find elsewhere. Beau had no idea how he’d been able to manufacture makeup that actually looked reasonably usable, but it was beautiful to see and it smelled good, too – two tiny pots of lipstick paste with pink and red pigment, inky black mascara and azure blue eyeliner, clay foundation that matched Jester's skin tone surprisingly well, even a little tray of crumbly eyeshadows that smelled like incense and sparkled softly when Jester turned them in the light. She immediately opened all the containers to try everything, with Molly leaning over her shoulder eagerly asking to get a second pass at everything.

And finally, Jester gave her gift to Nott. It was a portrait – a small enough canvas to hold in one hand, painted with ambery, burnished oils. It showed Nott, and it was remarkable, because she looked beautiful, but also exactly like herself at the same time. Jester’s brushstrokes and her mastery of color and light and shadow had accentuated all of Nott’s most compelling features, like her large eyes and her hazel-brown complexion and her wide mouth and rounded nose, and her expression was calm and open, and the likeness was perfect but it portrayed a Nott who was centered and secure and knew her strengths and her beauty. Nott held it out away from herself like a mirror, just staring at it with a complicated expression on her face. “Do you like it?” Jester asked nervously. And Nott couldn’t say anything. She just nodded, lips pressed shut and eyes damp. Jester enveloped her in her arms, holding her tight against her chest.

Later in the afternoon, after they’d eaten most of the contents of the kitchen and everyone had beaten everyone else at MarioKart and they’d all finished arguing about which movie to watch, Beau and Fjord sat next to each other on the crushed-velvet loveseat and surveyed their family, who were all piled among each other on the furniture, some half-asleep and some paying rapt attention to the corny Netflix Christmas special Jester had vehemently lobbied for.

“We got a pretty good group, huh?” Fjord commented softly, nudging Beau in the rubs.

She smiled. “Yeah. We did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caduceus the one-man Lush store <3 I know this chapter kind of seems ending-y and that's because the next 12 chapters are kind of going to be wrapping up the character arcs from this story- bear in mind that this is slice-of-life so I am not going to try to resolve all of the issues and loose ends from their back stories, but those may be explored more in future fics set in this universe! Also, I've mentioned it before but in case you missed the memo, the final chapter is just going to be bonus information about this AU, the characters in it, how I wrote it, etc. When we get to chapter 63 I'll invite folks to drop specific questions they want me to answer in the comments, but if you have a question and you're worried you'll forget by then, you're welcome to ask now <3
> 
> Couple things: those of you who followed my Tumblr may have noticed that it is not there anymore! (Don't worry, I didn't block you!) I decided to delete my blog because one of my goals for the new year is to use social media less, but I very much enjoyed receiving messages from a few folks on there, and if you took the time to visit my blog while it existed, I appreciate you :)
> 
> Also! My other critrole fic, Left My Shoes in the Street So You'd Carry Me, is now complete! If you're enjoying this fic and you're a fan of beaujes and/or college AU's, you might like that one too!
> 
> And finally: my very dear friend and former roommate has starting writing their own beauyashter high school AU! I highly recommend it if you're looking for another fic to try! You can find it in my bookmarks (shouldn't be too hard since it's currently my only bookmark). Go ahead and give it a read and show them some love!


	52. Chapter 52

Snow was rare in the Bay Area, but it sometimes got frosty in midwinter. The morning fog lasted longer than usual, like clouds sinking down to the earth, and when it lifted it left behind lawns whitened with ice and intricate silver-blue fractals in the corners of windowpanes.

The frost also killed plants. Yasha knew this intellectually, was aware that it made total sense from a biological perspectives, but she still wasn’t prepared for the barenness of the back garden. She missed the lush floral extravaganza of late summer. Now she sat on the back porch swing, slowly creaking forward and backward and scrolling the photos she’d taken of flowers back in September, missing the crystalline colors and the vibrant warmth.

“Would you like a blanket?” someone asked.

She looked over her shoulder. Caduceus stood there, wrapped in a grandmotherly plaid bathrobe. He blinked slowly at her, a soft smile on his lips.

“Oh, yes. A blanket would be very nice. It’s chilly out here.”

He handed her a fuzzy afghan from the living room sofa, and she wrapped it closely around herself as he sat down next to her. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

She turned off her phone screen and slid it into the pocket of her joggers. She used to exclusively wear black slacks and black button-down shirts, but as she’d realized that her bodyguard duties were less strenuous than she’d expected, she’d gradually started easing herself towards a more casual wardrobe. Mostly, she took after Beau’s athletic pants and hoodies, although she didn’t feel bold enough to wear sleeveless tops yet. She figured Beau was bold enough for the both of them. I love how bold she is, she thought. And then she reminded herself not to say that out loud until Beau was ready to hear it.

“I just miss the summer flowers,” she told Caduceus. “They were so beautiful. I love flowers. I’m a fan of them.”

He nodded in understanding. “I’m a fan of flowers, too.”

They sat for a moment in comfortable silence, looking out at the cloudy sky and the leafless trees.

“There are winter flowers, though,” he added, suddenly.

She tilted her head in interest. “Are there?”

He nodded again. “Yes. I have some hellebore over on the side of the house. Let me show you. Come with me.” He stood, gesturing for her to follow him. She did, holding the afghan around herself like a shawl.

His bare feet crunched on the icy lawn as he crossed it towards the opposite end of the house – she wondered if his toes were cold. She forgot about that immediately, though, when he led her to a flowerbed where she saw an array of five-petaled crimson and magenta and chartreuse blooms, friendly and sweet in their playful resemblance to cartoon flowers.

“These are hellebore,” Caduceus explained. “Some folks call them Christmas roses. Even though they don’t look much like roses to me. They’re pretty, aren’t they?”

Yasha nodded emphatically. “May I take a photo?” she asked, feeling a bit shy even though she knew he'd accept.

“Of course,” he beamed, adjusting his glasses.

She knelt to capture some shots. They weren’t as warm and golden as the ones from summer, but they were just as beautiful in their own wintery way. Maybe she’d try painting these too. Or she’d try chalk pastels – Jester had been using them a lot lately, and they looked fun to work with.

“Would you like to see some more? I have plenty,” Caduceus said.

She glanced up at him excitedly. “Please!”

He showed her a bed of brilliant purple phlox, and lemonade-yellow vines of winter jasmine scaling the east-facing clapboard wall, and delicate snowdrops blooming at the edge of the lawn like tiny kisses. He showed her his Algerian iris, which glowed periwinkle blue in a shady corner near the now-brittle azalea hedges. He showed her a scraggly orange-blossomed shrub that he explained was a specific type of witch hazel which he was planning to use it in a complicated ritual to cleanse negative energy for the new year, and also to make some aftershave for Molly.

She took photos of all of them. They were all unusual flowers to be sure, but she found herself feeling very fond of them for blooming in the coldest months when all the other flora were dead or dormant. She was a bit of a winter flower, she thought to herself.

“Thank you,” she said to Caduceus, hoping she understood how much she meant it.

He re-tied the knot on his bathrobe and smiled warmly at her. “Of course. I’m happy that someone besides me appreciates them. Flowers love attention, you know.”

Yasha laughed, surprising even herself. “I suppose they do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find those winter flowers :')
> 
> By the way! My playlists for Yasha, Jester, and Beau (based on canon more than on this fic) are now on YouTube if you want to listen to them and don't have Spotify ~
> 
> Yasha: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLypmdPa8wvVItnmhp4eF0QQLYZ5sxQQ6r
> 
> Jester: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLypmdPa8wvVLQjlweqGLEylUpASNzVHAU
> 
> Beau: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLypmdPa8wvVIUQhMz_fSw9GaboCxgVJSL
> 
> I will add Caleb, Fjord, and Molly later and include the links in the end notes for a future chapter when I do :)
> 
> As always, thank you SO MUCH for all of your incredibly sweet comments and kudos! I cannot stress enough how amazed I am at the response to this fic! You all are THE BEST <3
> 
> And just another reminder to check out my wonderful friend's fic! (Find it in my bookmarks :)


	53. Chapter 53

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year, everybody!!
> 
> Content warnings for this chapter:  
> \- descriptions of depressive thought patterns  
> \- references to past drug/alcohol abuse  
> \- implied past passive suicidality
> 
> As always I will include a summary in the end notes if you want to skip this chapter, or know more context before you read!

Sometimes Fjord felt like he’d died years ago, and right now he was on his second run of life. He thought about the worst days in his memories and how he could have died on any of them, and it wasn’t so hard to believe that he actually HAD died on one of them and some cosmic mistake had allowed him to keep going through the motions of life on this mortal coil.

One might assume that, theoretically, this would mean that he lived every day with a doubled sense of enjoyment and gratitude because he was aware of how precious and finite it all was. In reality, though, it meant that oftentimes he felt like a zombie trying to disguise himself as a living person. Every day he went to work and rode the metro and stopped by the hardware store and no one around him could see that he was already dead. After he got out of rehab the second time, he’d had trouble talking to anyone at all. What would he say to them? They would talk about their jobs, and he would talk about coming back from the underworld. Neither of them would have any hope of understanding each other.

It had taken him a long time to re-learn how to be a person, and the lesson still felt like it wasn’t over. Maybe this was the source of the “zombie pretending to be alive” feeling. He was going through the motions of being human without the sense of naturalness that generally came along with it.

When he looked back on his life, he saw a timeline studded with moments he thought he would never survive. A book with several chapters that could have easily been the last, each leaving the reader surprised to find that there were still more pages. And yet here he was. It didn’t feel like a grand accomplishment – he felt no desire to frame this timeline and hang it on the wall, sweeping his hand over it for an audience of his peers and proclaiming, “Look at all the times I grappled with the grim reaper and won the fight”. Because it didn’t feel like a victory, much less a prolonged series of repeating victories. It just seemed to him like sheer chance that he’d made it through any of those crucibles, and deep down he wasn’t even certain that he really had successfully made it through all of them.

But what did it mean to be a zombie? What was the difference between a dead person pretending to be alive, and a person who was truly alive? What had he lost at the moment of his death? He wasn’t always sure; he just felt a formless, bone-deep grief at times, as if his body was mourning the past end of his life.

If there was part of him left to mourn, though, maybe he wasn’t all dead. Zombies didn’t attend funerals for themselves. It was possible, he considered, that part of him had died, but part of him was still alive – truly, actually alive. And the part of him that was alive was there at the funeral, standing above the gravestone – “Here lies the person I used to be”.

Because he hadn’t been the same, back then. His darkest hour had killed the part of him that drank too much, smoked too much, numbed his mind with drugs, fell in love with someone who could never love him back, rejected beauty and hope, destroyed himself knowingly and without care. And that man, that man that used to be Fjord, that man who had tried very hard to kill Fjord and who’d almost succeeded, wasn’t evil. He was just dead. Fjord had spent years thinking he was merely the resurrected corpse of that man, but maybe he was a different man altogether. They’d both been Fjord, but one of them had died, and now the other had taken his place.

It was worth it to mourn. But he’d spent a long time doing nothing but mourning. Maybe the funeral was over now. Maybe it was time to stop pretending he was the one in the coffin.

Zombies couldn’t dance, he was pretty sure. And that was what he was learning to do now. (Literally.)

“Now, when I put my left foot forward, you have to move your right one back, okay?” Jester said, holding onto his shoulder for balance as she watched their feet on the tiled kitchen floor. “It’s like there is a force field between your foot and my foot, and our toes have to always be the exact same distance apart, you know?”

Fjord frowned in concentration. “Okay…”

Jester nodded in excitement. “Good, you did it right this time! Now, you have to move your hips around, like, a HUNDRED percent more. Your hips are so stiff, Oskar!”

“How am I supposed to incorporate hip movements? I only need to move my legs, really…”

Jester tossed her hair, exasperated. “No, you are moving your arms, too, silly! And it’s not about ‘needing’ to move your hips, you just move them around anyway, sort of in a circle, see?”

She demonstrated. Fjord gulped. It was hard to actually learn much from these hip-moving lessons when he was so achingly attracted to his instructor. “What is this dance called, again?” he asked, hoping to distract her.

“Bachata! I already told you that, remember?” She let go of his hands to put her own on her hips, giving him a stern-but-fond glare.

He had remembered that. He also knew, at least in theory, how to do bachata; he was half Dominican on his mother’s side. Just because he knew the steps didn’t mean he could do them well, though. The bachata was a fairly simple dance in terms of instructions that could be listed on paper, but it required a level of freedom of movement and emotional openness that he didn’t possess and probably hadn’t possessed since before he was capable of conscious thought.

He was learning, though. Trying to, anyway.

When he’d finished rehab he’d thought he’d known everything he needed to know, and that the following years would just be about putting that knowledge into practice. But lately he’d been discovering that there was a seemingly endless list of things he didn’t know and would benefit from knowing, and Jester had been teaching him a fair amount of them. Including bachata. He hadn’t mentioned to her that he already knew a little bit of it; he figured it would probably be better to just start from scratch. At eleven thirty pm (it was the only time they could guarantee no one else would need to use the kitchen).

“Try moving your hips, Fjord,” Jester instructed him kindly. “Do you want me to stand over there, or stay here?”

“You can stay here,” he told her quietly.

She nodded and squeezed his hands in her own. He took a deep breath. And moved.

“There, you’re doing it!” Jester exclaimed excitedly. “Hold on, let me turn on some music!” She darted over to her phone, sitting on the granite counter, and started playing a bachata song that he didn’t know the name of but remembered hearing as a kid. She ran back over and took his hands again. “Okay, let’s start. You remember the steps, right?”

“I do.” He did.

And then they were dancing. He had to concentrate hard on where he placed his feet and how to coordinate the different parts of his body at first, but as he got into the rhythm of it, it flowed more naturally and he found himself having to spend less energy thinking about what he wanted his body to do and more energy letting his body do what it wanted. And it wanted to dance with Jester, and it was pretty good at that, it would seem.

Jester laughed in delight, throwing her head back as he spun her, skin glowing in the yellowy kitchen light as her hair whipped across her face. As she spun back, she spun a bit too far, landing against his chest as the song wound down. And then suddenly it was quiet in the kitchen and their faces were very close.

He wasn’t always comfortable being close to people, physically or metaphorically. He felt like there was a force field around him, to use Jester’s earlier analogy. But Jester had destabilized the force field, and now she was right there, and it was scary and novel and exciting. He could count her eyelashes, and the little unplucked hairs around her eyebrows.

“Thank you for teaching me to dance, Jes,” he said softly.

She grinned, eyes crinkling. “I like when you call me Jes. I think Jessie would be even better, though.”

“Okay. Jessie.”

They stared at each other for a little longer. It wasn’t creepy or anything – there was just nowhere else it felt natural for their eyes to go. Maybe they were both in a force field together.

“Can I kiss you?” Jester asked, and her face was close that he almost thought he’d heard her speak from inside his own head.

He nodded, a very slight nod, but she noticed it because of their proximity. And she kissed him. And it had been such a long time since he’d kissed anyone, but maybe it was like riding a bicycle, because the protocol wasn’t so hard to remember and it also felt intuitive, just the way the dancing had felt once he’d gotten used to it, and that was how he knew he was kissing the right person. He could feel her heartbeat, almost in sync with his own.

And there they were, kissing in the kitchen at midnight, hands still clasped as if the dance hadn’t ended. And this was something living people did, he thought. Living people kissed other living people and felt every second of it. Living people felt warmth inside and outside their body. They danced. They laughed. Their hearts beat. They mourned sometimes, yes. They felt unbearably, unconscionably sad, but they were never dead as long as they could still breathe, and their very ability to feel anything at all was a mark of their livingness.

Maybe Fjord had died, but he wasn’t dead now. He was alive. He tilted his head to kiss Jester more deeply and let go of her hand to cup her jaw and inhaled her floral perfume smell, and it felt natural, not like pretending at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fjord reflects on how he feels like a zombie sometimes instead of a living person, but lately he's been starting to feel more alive again as his mental health improves. Jester also teaches him bachata and then they kiss.
> 
> Also! I have YouTube playlists for Caleb, Fjord, and Molly now if you are interested:
> 
> Caleb: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLypmdPa8wvVLdz-WZrXDnHAv4ct5HVSKk
> 
> Fjord: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLypmdPa8wvVLWXU6U5PKGTBR9Aj24llMV
> 
> Molly: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLypmdPa8wvVJDT3Td3R6r67v0Gtz77wjJ
> 
> And one more thing! I just posted a beauyasha high school AU oneshot - feel free to check it out if that premise appeals to you <3  
> Thank you for reading! Love you all <3


	54. Chapter 54

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! I hope you're having an amazing day!

Yasha was sitting in the living room on a wintry afternoon when Caleb approached her. She was reading a battered paperback copy of Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘The Second Sex’ that she had picked up at a library sale – they’d been selling it for a quarter because the spine was falling apart. She’d only read the introduction and half of the first chapter, but so far it wasn’t too dense for her to understand, as was often the case with academic texts. She felt she was improving her English while also enriching herself intellectually. And the author’s name had ‘Beau’ in it – maybe that was a shallow reason to choose a book, but Yasha supposed it was okay because she had other good reasons.

“Yasha? Can you help me with something?” Caleb asked.

Yasha looked up at him in surprise, carefully dog-earing her page and setting it down on the etched-glass coffee table. The pale morning light washed out his ginger hair to a pastel sandy tone, and he was wearing what she figured were his pajamas – a dark green crew-neck sweatshirt and soft-looking charcoal pants with a brown wool cardigan for warmth.

“Yes? What is it?” Yasha asked.

Caleb rubbed his scruffy jaw thoughtfully. “Well – would you like some tea first?”

“Okay.”

He walked to the kitchen to make them cups of tea. “What kind would you like?” he called back.

“Green for me, please.” Yasha reopened her book to read another paragraph while she waited for Caleb to return. She was very proud of herself for how fast her English reading comprehension had gotten. These days, she could catch the entire meaning of a sentence after only reading it through twice! She made a note to herself to let Jester know about this accomplishment. Jester was the best person to talk to when you were proud of yourself for something, because she always got disproportionately excited and insisted on eating strawberry shortcake or going to the Korean skincare shop to celebrate and even though Yasha didn’t share Jester’s enthusiasm for strawberry shortcake and Korean skincare, she appreciated the over-the-top validation of her feelings of self-pride.

Presently, Caleb came back into the room, bringing with him two steaming mugs. Yasha recognized one of them as Fjord’s Texas flag mug and the other as Caduceus’s ‘wake up, say a prayer, hustle’ mug (he was strangely into wine mom paraphernalia of the ‘live, laugh, love’ variety).

Yasha took a sip and shifted her sitting position to face him, curling her legs up on the sofa cushion. Caleb cleared his throat. “Ja, so… You’re very close with Molly.”

Yasha nodded, taking another sip. That was true.

“His birthday is coming up.”

Was it? Yasha mentally counted. “It’s about three weeks away.” That didn’t seem very soon to her, but maybe things like this were timed differently in America. Then again, Caleb wasn’t American, either. Were Germans known to overprepare? It seemed to make sense based on generalizations she’d heard people make.

“Ja. And I need your help planning a birthday present. His present for my birthday was just perfect, and I need to match it somehow.” As if on cue, Frumpkin slunk into the living room, leaping onto Caleb’s lap. Caleb stroked his back absently as he continued. “But he owns most of the things he really wants. What do you get for the man who has everything and needs nothing?”

Taking another sip, Yasha thought about that, toying with a stray lock of her hair. “I wouldn’t say that he needs nothing, necessarily. I think he loves pretty jewelry and clothes and chocolates and wine, of course. But the things he really cares about are more… intangible.” (She’d learned that word from Jester last week, and she was proud of her pronunciation.)

Caleb’s brow furrowed as Frumpkin purred. “I see. What do you suggest, then?”

Yasha didn’t know what she suggested. “Take him somewhere interesting, perhaps?” she tried. “Not somewhere expensive. Somewhere that you think would mean something to him.”

Caleb stared into the middle distance, blue eyes pensive. After a long moment he looked back at her, nodding firmly. “Thank you. You have helped me.”

“I’m glad,” Yasha answered. And then she added, “Can I pet your cat?”

Caleb smiled. He had a taut, angular jaw that seemed to stretch like a bow and arrow when he grinned; Yasha had no eye for good-looking men, but she could sort of understand why Molly thought he was handsome. “Of course,” he said, lifting Frumpkin off his lap and sending him to Yasha’s. The cat looked sour (as sour as cats can look, anyway) but obliged.

Gently, Yasha ran a hand over Frumpkin’s fur. It was very soft, and she’d been calm before, but somehow touching the cat made her feel even calmer. “He is a very nice cat,” she said.

Caleb nodded, face fond. “Ja, he is. I like him.”

“Me too.”

Frumpkin purred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, who grew up on LOTR: *lowkey imagines Caleb as looking like a ginger Aragorn*


	55. Chapter 55

Rain fell softly outside the kitchen window.

The room was lit in the way that rooms looked when the lights were off and it was cloudy outside, with pale gray light filtering in through the glass panes, painting Yasha’s face in pearlescent tones. She was leaning against the counter, sipping tea.

Beau had hoped she wouldn’t be sipping tea. (The reason for that hope was kind of dumb.)

She’d never been much of a romantic. All her grand gestures with Tori had involved… well, when she really thought about it, there hadn’t really been many grand gestures involving Tori. During the beginning of her relationship with Yasha she’d actively tried not to think about Yasha because she didn’t want the bad feelings to smoke their way into her happiness like ink in water.

But lately she hadn’t really been thinking about Tori much at all. The change had happened seemingly effortlessly. Tori crossed her mind occasionally as much as any memory did, but she was just that – a memory. A thing of the past. A relic from a version of her life that was no longer current. Nothing worth crying over anymore.

She was a new Beau now. Maybe a romantic Beau – who knew?

(Of course, any grand romantic gestures that entailed avoiding directly talking about her feelings were particularly appealing to her.)

Beau cleared her throat as she padded into the kitchen. Yasha’s cheeks softened into a smile when she saw her.

“Hello, my dear,” Yasha said.

Beau cleared her throat again because she felt vulnerable and that made it harder for her to converse like a normal human being. “Uh, hello.” She paused, awkwardly holding out the mug in her hand. “Would you, ah. Would you like a cup of tea?”

Yasha stared at Beau, then glanced down at the mostly-full mug in her own hand, then back at Beau. “Ah…”

Beau cleared her throat a third time. “Uh, just… just humor me. Please.”

One of Beau’s favorite things about Yasha was the way she never questioned her. Yasha set her own mug down on the counter and took Beau’s.

She paused in confusion. “There’s no tea in here…” she said.

“I know… look in the mug, though.”

Yasha looked in the mug. The mug which had been Beau’s sole product from the ceramics class Jester had dragged her to last week. The mug which was almost entirely cornflower blue but proclaimed three simple words in painted black lettering on the bottom of the interior, right where you could read them as you tilted the vessel back to take a sip.

Yasha’s cheeks became rosy as she gazed into the mug. Beau fidgeted awkwardly. Maybe this idea had been stupid. Maybe it was childish. Yasha probably regretted being Beau’s girlfriend –

“I love you, too,” Yasha said quietly, looking up from the mug and swiftly putting an end to Beau’s spiraling.

Beau’s path had been difficult, winding, and often seemingly insurmountable, but it had led her here, and she was right where she belonged, with this woman, and she understood that more than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short 'un this week! <3
> 
> Up until now the chapters have occurred relatively one-after-the-other in terms of chronology (also paralleling what time of year it was when I wrote them, lol) but from now on there will be time skips between chapters! I'll still update once a week, but chronologically, the chapters will take place farther in the future :)


	56. Chapter 56

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this one's a few days late, and thank you for your patience! Things with school have been a little hectic, and I also started a one-shot for another fandom (Dimension 20) and got possessed by some kind of Writing Demon and had to finish it as soon as possible. But chapter 56 is here now! Enjoy!
> 
> EDIT: Content warning for non-detailed discussion of past death of a parent! Summary in the end notes if you want to skip <3

Nott hadn’t been enjoying high school very much to begin with, but now that the first semester of the year was over, her favorite part - art class - had finished, and it was even more difficult to convince herself that she cared. The period was now occupied by physical education, which was a sorely unjust bargain in her opinion.

There were two options for gym classes at Nott’s school: “individual sports” and “team sports”. Theoretically, the latter involved playing games like basketball and fastpitch and flag football and the former involved, presumably, running in circles around the track and doing pilates videos in the wrestling room and, in bad weather, the FitnessGram pacer test.

In reality, though, both classes ended up doing largely the same activities because they occurred at the same time and the two coaches wanted to sit next to each other on the bleachers and talk about sports, so it was more "convenient" to force all the jocks who’d deliberately signed up for team sports to play kickball with the nerds who’d begrudgingly chosen individual sports.

Nott had ended up in individual sports, although it hardly mattered, of course. And anyway, she’d quickly discovered that if she was sneaky, she could slip away as the coaches led the students out to the field and hide in the wooded area behind the gym. There was a winding boardwalk path that connected the campus to a nearby housing development, and she could very easily escape school and go home (or anywhere else) if she wanted to, but she’d discovered, to her surprise, that she was happy to just sit on the wood slats and weave dandelion crowns and daisy chains under the dappled light filtering through the treetops.

This was a surprise to her because she’d spent the majority of her life wishing to be somewhere else. Someone else. It was hard growing up without parents. It was hard growing up indigenous. It was hard growing up poor. It was hard growing – well, not really growing that much physically, and also looking different from most people, and acting different from most people, and bearing the perception that she wouldn’t be easy for her peers to identify with, especially when that perception often turned out to be correct. She felt so uncomfortable and so wrong, so much, all the time, and sometimes the only solution was to imagine that none of it was happening, and she was only watching a movie about a girl she’d never want to be. She thought sometimes that her day-to-day existence could make an Oscar-worthy film for wealthy white people to enjoy for two hours and then go back to their own cushy realities, perhaps admiring her tenacity but secretly feeling glad to be exactly where they were and not where she was. Perhaps they wouldn’t even think of her as someone from the real world.

But it wasn’t a movie: it was her life, and she was living it every day, and she never got to skip scenes or roll credits and there wasn’t even a moving soundtrack playing when she felt strong emotions. And the funny and sad thing she’d realized was that no matter how hard she wished she wasn’t Nott T. Brave, that wish would never come true. The only thing she’d ever accomplished by pretending was to transport herself away from a life that was admittedly not always easy (in fact, it was rarely easy), but was the only one she had, and probably the only one she’d ever get (unless reincarnation was real, but the jury was still out in her opinion).

If reincarnation was real, she supposed her mother was somewhere else now. Someone else now. Nott wasn’t certain about that. If she was another person, then she still wasn’t Nott’s mother anymore – that life was over. Her opportunity to do all the things she’d done as Nott’s mother had ended. And it had ended so long ago that Nott couldn’t even remember much of what she’d done with it.

Nott wondered, sometimes, what she’d been missing out on during her opportunity to be Nott. She’d had it for seventeen years, and she’d been unhappy with it for most of those. But she doubted she’d ever get the chance to be anyone else. So she thought maybe, just maybe, it couldn’t hurt to try to make the most of it.

She was realistic, of course – she knew that being Nott wasn’t always pleasant, and an attitude shift wouldn’t necessarily change that, at least in a tangible way. But there were still opportunities that she hadn’t taken advantage of because she’d been busy wishing she didn’t have them to begin with.

Opportunities to make dandelion crowns in the winter sun. It was chilly, and there was no one around, but the dandelions were bright yellow and they were beautiful. P.E. sucked, but wandering through an unknown housing development would probably suck too, so she might as well sit here and make something pretty that she could show to Caleb later.

Being Nott wasn’t so bad, sometimes. It was better when she wasn’t actively disengaging from it.

“Hey, Nott.”

Nott glanced up to see Yeza approaching her on the boardwalk, dressed in basketball shorts and the standard gym shirt their high school sold for five dollars at orientation.

As he sat down next to her, she smiled. Smiling at people was another thing she’d been trying. It didn’t always amount to anything, but every now and then people smiled back, and it made her chest feel warm.

Yeza smiled back. Her chest felt warm.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked.

He swung his legs. “I could ask you the same question.”

“I didn’t want to be in P.E.,” she said, using her thumbnail to create another slot in a dandelion stem. She threaded a second dandelion stem through it.

“Me neither.” He peered at her handiwork. “Hey, will you teach me how to do that? It looks fun.”

She grinned. “It is fun. Here, let me show you. You gotta pick some dandelions first.”

As he got up to gather his crown-weaving materials, she couldn’t help but keep grinning. It felt nice to be the one sharing something fun with someone else. Typically, she was the one who was bored or tired or frustrated or unhappy, and someone else (usually Jester) coaxed her into doing something enjoyable for the sake of enjoying herself. But now it seemed like she was getting better at… being happy. Being a happy person. And she was doing it all by herself!

Actually… that wasn’t true. She’d learned it from Jester, she thought. And from Molly, as annoying as he was. And Caduceus, and even grumpy Beau and stoic Fjord and quiet Yasha. And Caleb. Her brother, who worked so hard to care for her. He’d known all along that Nott was someone special, even though it had taken her until now to figure it out. She still wasn’t all the way to figuring it out, really, but she had him to help her get there.

And now she was teaching Yeza. Well – maybe Yeza already knew, in some senses. They probably both had things to teach each other.

For example.

“Hey, Yeza!” she called out to him. He glanced up, arms full of dandelions.

“If I show you how to make dandelions, will you show me how to play that game you like? With the dragons?”

He smiled – full blue-and-pink braces smile – and sat down next to her. “Dungeons and dragons? Yeah, of course! Me and my friends were going to start a campaign this weekend if you wanna join!”

She took one of the dandelions from his collection, because she was out of the ones with longer stems. “What’s a campaign?”

“Oh, where to begin… are you okay with sitting out here all period?”

Nott looked around at the sunny winter woods, and the blue sky, and the wooden boardwalk, and the nice boy next to her, and the flowers in her arms, and the nearly finished crown sitting next to her. “Yeah, I’d be okay with that,” she said.

She would be okay with that.

She would be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the last Nott Chapter and I'm a lil emotional :') Also, if anyone is wondering, yes my Yeza is trans (trans flag braces!)
> 
> Thank you so much for all your lovely kudos and your sweet, heartfelt comments! I feel so incredibly honored and thankful every day that so many people have loved this fic. To those of you who've been following along since summer 2019, to those of you who binge-read all of it today, and to everybody in between, thank you thank you thank you for joining me on this journey and I'm so glad I could bring you a lil bit of happiness! Hope you have a great day today and every day!
> 
> Summary: Nott makes dandelion crowns with Yeza and reflects on how she spent a lot of her life wishing to be someone else and from now on she wants to try to make the most of being who she is


	57. Chapter 57

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello sweet friends! Hope you're having a wonderful day!

Molly hadn’t really minded when Caleb told him that his birthday present was going to be four months late. He wasn’t the sort of person who generally cared a lot about things like that – he loved to give gifts, but it didn’t matter to him very much whether he received them in return, or how soon or how much they cost or how “meaningful” they were (whatever that meant, really). He just overflowed with affection sometimes and didn’t know how to properly express how strongly he felt, how to cross the invisible barrier of understanding that exists between two separate souls, and so what often made the most sense was to literally give someone a physical object and hope they would make the connection that it was really a piece of his heart. He didn’t expect a gift in return because in his mind, he was already giving the return-gift – the original gift had been that person themselves, and the time they spent with him, and the happiness they made him feel.

He had almost forgotten about his birthday. And he’d definitely forgotten about Caleb’s promise of a four-months-late gift. He’d been a little busy… falling in love, and all that. The thing was that he could just… feel… how Caleb felt about him, and he didn’t need to quantitative data like on-time gifts as proof that their bond was real.

As such, he hadn’t been expecting anything in particular. Maybe a nice new gown or perhaps a tasteful bracelet.

He definitely hadn’t been expecting to feel so… seen. The best gifts, he thought, were the ones that the recipient hadn’t even known they wanted. And Caleb had gotten it in one.

Caleb was even willingly putting on a costume. Molly didn’t need quantitative data, but if he did, that was something he’d add to the list.

The earliest Renaissance Faire of the summer was up near Santa Rosa, which meant a road trip. Caleb had planned to at least take Molly by himself, but they’d sent out a group email to let the other housemates know in case any of them wanted to join, and their reactions had ranged from highly enthusiastic (Jester) to passively interested (Caduceus) to dubious but unwilling to be left out of the fun (Beau and Fjord).

And now, here they all were: Jester in a low-cut, voluminous-skirted peasant dress with BDSM-adjacent leather accessories that drew surreptitious glances from Fjord, Fjord himself in what looked like some kind of dark knight outfit, Beau in an ab-revealing ninja getup in shades of blue that made her eyes sparkle, Yasha decked out like a Xena-esque goth warrior queen, Caduceus dressed in costume armor in shades of green and pink (because of course), Nott in a dark robe because it was the only thing she could find in her size that didn’t look “childish”, and Caleb, well… Caleb was just wearing a plain peasant shirt and period-film-looking tight brown trousers, and he’d brought an old-fashioned coat that he ended up leaving in the car because of the heat, but he was also wearing these silly holster things that were essentially Ye Olde Fanny Packs and he was using them to carry his water bottle and wallet and phone (and a book to read, because he was that kind of person) and it was a very “dorky dad” sort of costume piece but Molly had to admit that the leather straps were really doing it for him, stupidly enough.

Molly himself had donned, of course, the most elegant of faerie gowns in embroidered taffeta, combined with a floral tiara and lots of glittery body paint. He felt utterly, completely in his element. Caleb knew him so well that he had realized before Molly did that Molly belonged in a sunny field, dressed up like a genderless fey spirit and speaking in exaggerated medieval-isms as he perused stalls selling corsets and herbal incense and novelty daggers.

And he belonged with his friends.

As he looked around at all of them, excitedly chasing after each other, putting on bad English accents, he felt about as warm and bright and light-exuding as the sun up above. No physical gift could adequately express this love, he thought. He’d have to come up with some even clearer way of showing them, of thanking them.

Later in the afternoon, Jester and Nott were trying on every pair of fake horns available at the fake horn selling booth (and taking a photo of each of them wearing each one, of course). Caduceus was deeply involved in a conversation with the person selling candles, probably about methods of coloring beeswax. Beau had gotten mildly buzzed on mead and begun insisting that she needed to sign up for the jousting tournament to “win Yasha’s heart”, so now Yasha and Fjord were watching and clapping excitedly as the instructor helped her learn how to handle a lance without dropping it.

Molly sat next to Caleb on a picnic bench, contentedly snacking on fried artichoke hearts. Caleb looked like he’d already gotten more freckles just within the last few hours – it was so sunny out. He was really handsome, Molly thought. He thought this every day, multiple times a day, multiple times per hour even, whether or not Caleb was physically nearby, but it never became any less true. He reached out and affectionately tucked Caleb’s hair behind his ear and Caleb tilted his head and smiled gently at him.

“Thank you so much, dearest. I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect birthday gift.”

Caleb squeezed Molly’s knee. “You do not mind that it’s four months late?”

“Of course I don’t. Do you know me at all?” Molly leaned over and kissed his boyfriend’s stubbly cheek. “I’m lucky to have you, you know.”

Caleb laughed and shook his head. “Nein, I think I am the lucky one.”

Molly lightly swatted his shoulder. “It can be both.”

Caleb leaned against him. “Ich liebe dich, schatzi.”

Molly hummed, adjusting the bangles on his wrists. “I love dick, too.”

Caleb sighed. Heavily. “Believe it or not, I don’t love you any less after you just said that. That’s how true my feelings are.”

Molly laughed. Happily. It bubbled out of him like a fountain. “I love you, I love you,” he giggled, wrapping an arm around Caleb and squeezing him close against his side.

Fjord and Yasha whooped as Beau climbed into the saddle of her horse. She hadn’t even started jousting yet – they were just being supportive of her effort. Jester and Nott had moved on to the stall next door to try on every pair of faerie wings. Caduceus was now, it looked like, behind the counter of the candle booth, showing the owner how to do something.

Molly was so full of love. And he was so happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is wondering about my headcanons around Molly's genderfluidity or why I use he/him pronouns for him - that it one of the things I am planning on answering in the bonus chapter :)


	58. Chapter 58

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends sorry this one is so late! Life has been a bit overwhelming lately and I haven't had much time to work on fic!

A lot of things had changed in Yasha’s life in the ten months or so since she’d moved into the house in San Francisco. Not all of them were things she could easily explain in words – just changes in the way she felt or the way she saw the world. She also generally didn’t have an easy time explaining things in words, so maybe that was part of it, too.

There were a few changes that were very concrete, though. She couldn’t remember all of them all at once – they just occurred to her when she noticed them. For example, nowadays she did art by herself sometimes, instead of always with Jester and at Jester’s behest.

Well, not totally by herself.

“Are you… drawing me?” Beau asked, scrunching up her face like she was trying to stare directly at the sun.

Yasha laughed softly. Beau looked kind of dumb when she did that. (Dumb in a cute way.) And then Beau’s face turned awestruck, the way it did whenever she made Yasha laugh. Yasha knew that made Beau feel proud of herself – although it was debatable how proud she should be when she hadn’t even done it on purpose.

“Yes. Should I stop?”

They were in the living room. Beau was lying on her stomach on the floor, propped up on her elbows, with her laptop out to ostensibly answer emails but Yasha could see that she was actually just looking up celebrities on Wikipedia. (It was a pattern for her – apparently she needed to know “who’s gay”.) Yasha sat on the floor too, leaning against the sofa with the sketchbook and colored pencil set Jester had bought her in exchange for a promise to use them frequently.

Beau shook her hand, smiling. “Nah, it’s fine. Will you show me when you’re done? Or, like, if you wanna keep it secret, that’s fine, too, I guess.”

Beau’s face indicated that it really wasn’t fine and she really wanted to see it. Yasha laughed again. “Of course I’ll show you.”

And she would. She didn’t mind, really, because this one was turning out really well, at least in her opinion. She felt she’d gotten really good at matching body proportions and facial layout to the way a person really looked. And she’d also gotten Beau’s eye color right this time – she hadn’t been able to see her eyes that well all those months ago, the first time she’d drawn her.

Drawing was fun. That was another change, she supposed. Nowadays she let herself do things just because they were fun.

And Beau made an excellent subject, because she was so pretty that her likeness couldn’t help but imbue the page with prettiness. Yasha didn’t even need to add any flowers.

(Although she would anyway.) (Because she liked flowers.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and for your patience! Love you!


	59. Chapter 59

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy early Valentine's Day :)

Molly was trying to put a sweater on Frumpkin and Frumpkin wasn’t having it. This process had been going on for at least forty-five minutes.

“Come on – if he would just – Caleb, would you help me please?”

Molly looked up imploringly from his seated position on the backyard grass, hair disheveled and earrings askew. It was a warm June day and Molly had somehow come to the conclusion that it would a good idea to do a “photoshoot” with Frumpkin. (Caleb didn’t agree, but he was in love so he went along with it anyway.)

“I’m sorry, Liebling, I don’t have any free hands,” Caleb said. (He didn’t have any free hands because he was filming on his phone.) “And why do you need him to wear a sweater? It is hot outside so it does not make sense. And he already has fur.”

“I know all that, Caleb, I just think it’s cute – oh, dear, he’s run away again! Frumpkin, come back!”

Caleb ended getting multiple excellent photos out of the occasion, although none of them were the elegantly posed shots Molly had envisioned. Most of them were of Molly running after Frumpkin, begging Frumpkin to climb down from the oak tree in the backyard, or crouching next to the azalea hedge to try and figure out which bush Frumpkin was hiding under. There was one snapshot of him pointing in confusion at a marijuana plant (Caleb had pretended to be equally surprised to see it there).

Caleb’s favorite shot was of Molly lying on the grass, exhausted after an afternoon of antics. His eyes were closed, unaware that he was being photographed, and there was a soft, tired, smile on his lips. His eyeshadow was smudged from sweat and his curly purple hair fell around his face in soft Botticellian waves. One of his crystal ear studs had caught the sun in a way that scattered bubbles of iridescent light into the corners of the frame, which some people might’ve thought would ruin the image, but Caleb found it a perfectly adequate visual representation of how Molly looked in real life. Or, at least, what Caleb saw when he looked at Molly. Lots of rainbow glow.

In the past, Caleb might’ve imagined capturing this moment and keeping it forever in a snowglobe. But that implied that the future wouldn’t be as good and he would need a reminder of the present – the nice thing about being in love, truly in love, was that the future felt just as appealing as the present. This moment would be followed by thousands upon thousands of other moments, each one different from the last but equally beautiful in its own way.

“Hardly any of these pictures even have Frumpkin in them, Caleb,” Molly pouted, resting his chin on Caleb’s shoulders.

Caleb absently reached back and stroked his hair and Molly – mollified – nuzzled into Caleb’s neck.

The photos were all flawless, in Caleb’s opinion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Love ya!


	60. Chapter 60

Jester was on the roof again, listening to Carly Rae Jepsen (again). It was the height of summer now, though, so the sky was clear and blue and even the wind sweeping off the ocean wasn’t as cold and miserable as it had once been. The skirt of her sundress only whipped around her legs a little bit. And this time she’d made sure that Caleb and Nott weren’t home, so that she wouldn’t bother them by hanging out outside their window.

She also wasn’t sad, like she’d been the first time she’d come up here. Well, she wasn’t… not-sad. She was Something.

“Oh, shit, it’s windy as fuck up here,” someone grunted.

Jester spun around to witness Beau clambering out of the trapdoor to the master bedroom, flyaway hairs falling loose from her topknot. She squinted at Jester in the bright sunlight. “What are you doing up here?”

Jester tossed her French braids. “I could ask you precisely the same question, Beau,” she replied archly. She turned off her music app and slid her phone into her sundress pocket. (The pocket was shaped like an applique gerbera daisy; it was a pretty great dress.)

“Come on, don’t be like that.” Beau stumped over to the chimney stack Jester was leaning against and sat heavily down next to her, bracing one arm behind her and resting the other on a raised knee. She huffed wearily. She sometimes acted like a seventy-year-old man even though Jester knew she was young and athletic. It was probably just her personality.

They sat in silence for a moment. Jester wondered if it would be rude to start listening to Carly Rae Jepsen again. Normally she loved to talk, but right now she just wasn’t in the mood. Or rather, for her, wanting to talk was the status quo, and not wanting to talk was a mood. Beau had just been unlucky enough to run into her during the rare appearance of that mood.

“Are you gonna tell me what’s wrong?” Beau grumbled.

Jester smoothed her skirts over her knees. “It sounds like you don’t really want to know the answer.”

She knew that wasn’t true. Beau cared. She always had. The difference was that once upon a time she’d pretended not to care and been fairly successful at it, and now the ruse was transparent and Jester thought the transparency just might be intentional.

It wouldn't be so bad to talk to Beau, Jester thought. Beau didn't expect you to perform any kind of persona for her; she was just a straight-talker.

(Well. Not straight, per se.)

Beau glared at her. Jester grinned and bit her lip. “Okay, I’ll tell you.”

Beau gestured for her to go on.

“I was just thinking… about how different things are from the way they used to be.”

Beau frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… I went up on this roof a long time ago, like almost a year, maybe, because I was super sad about something that I don’t even remember anymore, and now I’m not sad about anything, except that I am, like, thinking about that time I went up here before, and how that’s not me anymore! Like, I am looking at her, the other Jester, as if she is in an aquarium and she is a fish.”

“You’re… a fish? What are you –”

“No, Beau! Like I am watching the memory, and the reason I am watching it is because I’m not in it anymore.” Jester gasped suddenly. “O.M.G… do you think my future self is watching ME right now?”

Beau’s brow furrowed. “I guess so… wait, are you talkin’ like… do you want to go back in time and be that person again? Is that what you’re saying?”

Jester shrugged. “No, I don’t think so. I guess I’m just… sad that time goes on and on and on and on, and every moment ends and then later my future self is watching it and being like, ‘Hmm, I remember that.’”

Beau blew out a breath and leaned back on both arms, looking up at the clear sky. “You’re like, trippin’ me out right now.”

“I guess I don’t really know what I’m talking about,” Jester said. She stuck her legs out in front of her, feet spread apart. “I think I just don’t want time to go by. I don’t want to get older. I wish I could stay in certain times forever and go back to other times, like a magical wizard.”

“A chronomancer.”

“A what?”

Beau’s eyes widened. “Uh… a wizard who can control time. Shut up! There’s no reason I know that! I’m not a nerd.”

Jester giggled. “Okay, nerd. I’m totally telling everyone that you’re a nerd, by the way.”

Beau sighed. “Okay, but for real, though… why are you sad? I feel like you’re up on the roof now, and you’re, like, better off than you were back then. You should be happy about that.”

“I guess so,” Jester shrugged. “But what if my future self is thinking that about me right now?”

“Well… good for her, then. Or, like, good for you. You have something to look forward to, maybe. And in the meantime… you should just enjoy this moment. Enjoy the fact that you’re better off now than you were. Or even if you’re not better off… just enjoy, like, this moment. It’s a new moment. Don’t waste it thinking about a different, other moment.”

Jester tilted her head. “Beau, that was, like, kind of deep.”

Beau flipped her off and Jester laughed. A gust of wind blew her hair across her face and when she swept it out of the way, Beau was grinning back at her – a genuine grin, rather than a shit-eating one.

They sat in silence a little longer, but it was a comfortable silence this time. Jester didn’t feel sad anymore. It had evaporated like the morning fog in the sunlight.

“Do you want to listen to Carly Rae Jepsen?” Jester asked.

Beau twisted her lips. “I don’t know, is she good? I feel like I don’t usually go for that kind of shit.”

“Um, you should go for THIS kind of shit, because YES, she is very very very good, Beau. I have the perfect song for you, let me show you –”

And so they hung out on the roof and they ended up listening to all of Emotion, plus the B-sides. And it was windy, but the sun was still warm. And it was a good moment – surely one that future Jester would think of fondly, for a split second, before diving back into whatever other good moment she was currently enjoying, years down the line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading ! Sorry again for the lateness!


	61. Chapter 61

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last beauyasha chapter... oof my feelings :')

Beau’s room back in Albuquerque hadn’t been decorated at all; she’d just had a bed with plain white linens, blank walls, an empty desk.

Her room here in San Francisco looked pretty different. It was a little bigger, to begin with. The floors were hardwood. There was more sunlight. On a whim while picking up groceries after work not long after moving in, she’d bought some plastic glow-in-the-dark stars she’d found in the bargain bin and pasted them up on the ceiling above her bed. They were really only easy to see at night and even then they didn’t glow very brightly, but during the day she could kind of make them out if she laid on her back and squinted at the whiteness above.

She’d made a lot more changes since then. Jester had painted the walls, for one. She’d bought a cheap patterned rug for the floor and some throw pillows for the bed, and she now had shelves lined with old kung fu trophies and Jester’s mildly creepy polymer clay sculptures, and her desk was covered in papers, teabags Caleb had given her, trinkets she’d confiscated from Nott to punish her for eating other people’s snacks, and all the pastel multicolored Post-it notes Yasha had written her over the last few months. She was going to put them in a notebook one of these days. Most of them were very mundane things like ‘Can you pick up more hot cocoa from the store today, love you’ and ‘Need to borrow $10 cash today, will pay you back tomorrow after I go to the ATM, love you’. But they all said ‘love you’ at the end, and they were all written by Yasha… and Beau was gay. Sue her.

Speaking of things that had changed since she’d moved in… her bed wasn’t empty anymore.

Yasha yawned, stretching her arms above her head. She was wearing one of Beau’s shirts – Beau was a size or two smaller than her, but she also had a Thing about seeing her girlfriend wearing her clothes, and it was tight enough on her that her figure was very visible… to reiterate, Beau was gay.

Now that Yasha slept in Beau’s room most nights (and Caleb slept in the basement, and Jester and Fjord seemingly randomly alternated between their two rooms), their original rooming assignments no longer made much sense, but that was a project for Beau to figure out over the summer. For the moment, Nott was enjoying having the attic all to herself, and Beau did a periodic sweep to make sure she wasn’t keeping anything super shady up there.

During the last month, Yasha had finally cut off the white parts of her hair, and now it fell just past her chest, black as ink and almost curly now that it was free from its split ends. She lifted her arms to tie it into a ponytail and smiled softly, seeing Beau standing by the door.

God, Beau was so smitten.

“Morning, gorgeous,” Beau said, climbing onto the bed and kissing her on the cheek.

“Morning, my love,” Yasha murmured, touching Beau’s upper arm to pull her close. “Where have you been?”

“I had to go to the market before it closed, remember? I’m making you tamales tonight. Like, real actual good tamales like I used to eat in New Mexico.”

That was one of the wonderful things about her life now, Beau thought. She wasn’t afraid of the past anymore. She could keep the good parts and let go of the bad, and neither made a significant mark on her present experience.

Except for tonight. These tamales were totally going to blow Yasha’s mind. Assuming Beau could figure out how to cook them properly, which… she might need some help from Jester.

(And then after that Beau was planning on blowing Yasha’s mind in a different way.)

“I’m looking forward to it,” Yasha beamed. Beau grinned back. She had no idea what she was in for.

As she snuggled up next to her still-sleepy girlfriend, something occurred to her.

Once, on a whim, she'd taken a photo of the room. She’d thought maybe it could be a 'before' image, and she’d take another one once she filled it up with new things.

There were a lot of new things about this room now.

Kissing Yasha on the cheek again, she climbed out of bed and stood back at the door, pulling her phone out of her pocket to take a snapshot. It featured Yasha sitting up against the pillows, eyeliner smudged, mouth beginning to form a laugh as she asked, “What are you doing?”

“Just takin’ pics. I’m like Google Earth, babe.” Beau placed her phone on the nightstand and stepped out of her track pants, shrugging off her hoodie as she crawled back under the covers. Yasha giggled as Beau wrapped her arms tight around her middle and hummed as she squeezed, rolling them over so Yasha was curled into the juncture of Beau’s neck and shoulder. “Plus, you’re so hot I can’t help it. I need to preserve this for posterity.”

“Do you really need to? I’m going to be here all day. And tomorrow, and the day after that.”

“I know,” Beau said, heart soaring.

She’d made a home here. She’d started over.

And it was still only the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like a million years ago somebody (and I can't remember the username, I am so sorry) commented that they thought Beau was eventually going to take an 'after' shot feat. Yasha. That was such a Called Shot. Congratulations my friend <3
> 
> Once again, thank you for reading, and have a lovely day!


	62. Chapter 62

Jester snuggled up next to Fjord, linking her arm through his.

“See, I told you: that guy looks just like you! Guys, doesn’t that guy from the movie look just like Oskar?”

All the inhabitants of the house were gathered in the living room watching Tusk Love on a Saturday evening. The sun had set, but they’d lit candles around the room, which now illuminated the antique home décor in flickering red-gold light. Beau had forgotten to pick up snacks from the store even though all seven of her housemates had texted her about it, so to punish her they were eating her weird high-protein brownie bite things that she generally refused to let anyone else touch. Fjord doubted Beau cared, though. Yasha’s head was reclined on her lap at the moment and Beau was mostly involved in gently smoothing strands of hair away from her forehead.

After finally admitting to them that he was, mind-blowingly, a secret movie star, Molly had allowed them to watch Tusk Love as a group on the condition that they didn’t watch any of the DVD extras where he’d been filmed making pretentious commentary on the director’s cinematography and his “acting process”. (Jester, of course, didn’t count because she’d already seen all of these interviews multiple times.)

Molly bit his lip. “I don’t know… kind of, I guess? Like, they’re both beefy guys, if that’s what you mean.”

“Fjord’s not beefy, he’s a twink,” Nott remarked from her perch on the back of the sofa.

“Again, Spatz, I do not think you understand what a twink is,” Caleb told her, sighing.

“I can definitely see the resemblance between Molly and the eligible suitor,” Caduceus said, stroking his scruffy beard.

“That’s because that IS me, love,” Molly pointed out gently, reaching over to pat his brother’s hand.

“Do you think you’d ever grow your hair like that again?” Yasha asked.

Beau snickered. “Yeah, do you think you’re ever gonna look that much like a pirate again?”

Molly scoffed. “I did not look like a pirate! I looked like a corsair if anything.”

“Isn’t that just another type of pirate?” Caleb questioned.

As Molly launched into an explanation of pirate terminology, Fjord felt a hand squeeze his thigh. He looked down to see Jester, electric-blue lips smiling fondly. “Are you doing all right, dearest?” she whispered.

“Yes, I’m doin’ great, Jes,” he whispered back.

And he wasn’t lying. For the first time in his memory, he really was doing great.

All day, he’d been looking forward to this time he’d spend with his friends – his family, really. Sitting around the living room, watching a dumb movie, eating mediocre snacks. Being glowingly happy. He hadn’t spent a lot of his life looking forward to things, but it had been happening more often lately.

So many of his years on earth had been spent either actively trying to survive or actively not surviving, and now, for the first time ever, he’d transcended both of those things. Because his life was good now. Well – he still had hard days at work, and he still got frustrated with people, and he still got tired of doing chores, and he still got anxious about the future and annoyed about the cleanliness of his room and confused about how to cook and mired in painful memories of the past. And none of that was fun. But the undercurrent of it all was that life was more than worth living, even when it wasn’t easy. Because of times like this – the happy times, that he loved and looked forward to. But they were just very obvious reminders of the truth that life was beautiful and essential purely by nature, and nothing that happened during it could ever really dilute that truth.

That morning he’d broken down crying just thinking about it. He could count on one hand the number of times in his life he’d cried, and this one had been inspired by the thought of watching Tusk Love with his housemates – who would’ve guessed?

Sometimes he wished he could travel back in time and let his past self know that everything was going to be okay. Better than okay, even. But at the same time he was immensely proud of himself for how many years he’d continued to carry on without knowing for certain that things would, in fact, be okay. It had been so hard. And now he’d reached a point in his journey where he finally felt able to validate how hard it had been, and congratulate himself for what he’d accomplished, and bask in the joy at which he’d eventually arrived.

Joy. Fjord had never thought of himself as a joyful person, but life really changed sometimes, didn’t it?

He leaned over and kissed Jester’s hair as the rest of the group burst out in laughter at a probably-not-very-funny line from Molly’s character. Jester squeezed his thigh again.

Life was so, so good.


	63. Chapter 63

Steam rose from Caduceus’ mug as he sat on the backyard porch drinking sage tea.

It was around dawn and he’s just returned from work. No one else in the house was up yet. The rose-gold morning light had just barely crested the treetops, and the grass was still coated in sparkling dew. The birds twittered. It was a beautiful morning.

Breathing deeply, he sent up a quick prayer for each of his housemates. During the time they’d lived together, he’d seen all of them grow so much as individuals. And he’d also seen them grow as a family. They’d needed each other, really, and it was just a beautiful coincidence that their paths all aligned and they’d received the opportunity to grow together in that way.

But it wasn’t a coincidence, was it? Things like this happened the way they were supposed to.

Caduceus let out another contented sigh and took another swallow of tea. So much had changed in the last year. Who knew what next year would bring?

His heart swelled with love and hope. He was ready to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final narrative chapter of the story! The next chapter will be a bonus with extra info about the characters and AU that didn't make it into story. If you have any specific questions about that (what music does Caleb listen to, did Beau play sports in high school, that sort of thing) or about my writing process, drop them in the comments within the next week and I will answer them!
> 
> I want to extend a massive thank you to everyone reading this right now. This is the first piece of writing I ever posted online - I just started writing it to relieve my anxiety last summer, and now as of posting this nearly 800 people have enjoyed it enough to give it kudos, which is pretty mind-blowing! Consistently adding to this fic every week has been life-changing for me in terms of improving my writing abilities and also just learning how to sit down and finish things. Before this fic I'd never finished a writing project, and now it's about to be my longest finished work!
> 
> Ultimately, my purpose in posting this online was to create something that people could read to get themselves through rough patches or calm themselves down when they were feeling upset. If this fic has been able to serve that purpose for even just one person, my goal has been accomplished. I am so honored that I've been able to shine some light into your life even just in a small way.
> 
> The outpouring of love and support I've received from all of you wonderful readers over the last few months has meant absolutely everything to me. I cannot thank you enough, from the bottom of my heart. You all deserve the world!
> 
> After posting the bonus chapter, I do plan on eventually writing follow-up fics in this universe, although I can't specify right now when they'll be posted or which characters they'll focus on. In the meantime feel free to check out my other fics if you're interested, and I also recommend trying my good friend illateasee's fic, which you can find in my bookmarks <3
> 
> Lots of love. Hope you have an amazing day :)


	64. Bonus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little late but here it is! Headcanons about the characters in this AU that didn't make it into the actual fic, answers to questions folks left in the comments, and a few notes about the way I wrote the characters :)

BEAU  
• Beau played basketball in high school, and she was moderately good (she would’ve been the star if she were more of a “team player”)  
• Her first childhood crush was on a little girl who lived next door and she dealt with her feelings by challenging her to a duel (with sticks as swords)  
• She’s actually supposed to wear glasses but she just deals with having mildly bad eyesight because she hates contacts and doesn’t want to “look like a frickin’ nerd”  
• She speaks a small amount of Vulcan (yes, from Star Trek)  
• In high school her mother always told her that her hair looked too messy so she shaved her head to spite her  
• She got her first nose piercing the day before senior year picture day, also to spite her mother  
• She started learning kung fu when she was a teen because she was constantly getting in trouble for anger management issues and the school counselor mandated that she get involved in a martial art to “exorcise her bad feelings”. Beau always thought that was bullshit but she did end up falling in love with kung fu enough to teach it as a career, and she has gotten better at managing her anger, although that might just have to do with growing up  
• She’ll never admit it, but she actually loves kids  
• She’s asked multiple times to use some of the weed that Nott is growing in the backyard but Nott refuses to give her any unless she pays for it and Beau is too honorable to just steal it  
• Her secret romantic fantasy is to take a girl out on a lake in a rowboat or canoe and do the rowing for her. It may seem minor but it was something she saw dreamy leading men in movies do for their female sweethearts and part of her experience as a young lesbian involved yearning to be seen as desirable in the same way attractive heterosexual men are desirable, and wanting to do all the tropey romantic things that handsome straight men get to do with women  
• Beau’s playlist:  
o Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3iqf2PaUdzjEiKVNBzE7GC?si=3-JcTfGqRLu2xf6Vmim7uw  
o Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLypmdPa8wvVIUQhMz_fSw9GaboCxgVJSL

JESTER  
• When Jester finishes a cup of tea, she rubs the teabag over her face because it’s “like a mini facial”  
• She and Caduceus have also gotten really into making their own facials and hair masks and lip scrubs out of avocado and oatmeal and brown sugar and egg yolk and other random ingredients from the kitchen. Beau always gets pissed at them for “wasting food, just eat it, goddammit”  
• Jester’s dream is to see Carly Rae Jepsen live  
• Whenever she’s busy doing some kind of task like washing the dishes, she talks out loud to herself. It freaks her housemates out because they’ll approach a room thinking there are multiple people in there but it’s just Jester having a solo conversation  
• Her favorite way to chill out is to have a fancy bath with candles and bubbles and rose petals and romantic music  
• When she was a teen she did a small amount of modeling but quit because she didn’t like the culture  
• As a child she constantly drew all over the walls and instead of punishing her, her parents enrolled her in art classes  
• She desperately loves animals and is currently working up to asking Beau and Fjord to get a dog (or two) for the house  
• Her childhood ambition was to be a unicorn. Not to own one – BE one  
• She’s had blue hair for the last several years, but before that it’s been purple, pink, and half-and-half in combinations of all three colors. She’s thinking of trying a more aqua shade of blue next  
• Jester’s playlist:  
o Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7yoDKG3eqkKHeKo6VN3uQe?si=gS17GHC8ST2VtMej2gx8RA  
o Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLypmdPa8wvVLQjlweqGLEylUpASNzVHAU

CALEB  
• Caleb speaks ten languages, but only four living ones  
• On any given day, he is wearing one of three sweaters and one of two pants (he owns a few other garments that he considers less “suitable for everyday wear”)  
• He’s read most of Tolkien’s published writing and genuinely enjoyed every word  
• He’s also gotten addicted to reading smutty romance novels during his time at the library (they make for a great way to pass the time while sitting behind the information desk)  
• When he wants to scrub up extra nice, he uses vanilla extract from the kitchen as cologne  
• During college when he was really low on cash, he would sometimes go outside and pick dandelions and use them to make salad  
• He didn’t date much in college – not because people weren’t interested in him, but because he was too busy reading and paying attention to the lecture to notice that his classmates were trying to flirt with him  
• When he wants to do some serious work, he drinks green tea. If he’s stressed or grumpy, he’ll drink black  
• He doesn’t believe in astrology, but when Jester tells him about her signs or her chart he says cryptic things like “Ah, that makes complete sense” or “Just as I predicted” to mess with her  
• Why did I not decide to give this Caleb a backstory that parallels his canon backstory? To be honest, the answer is that reimagining Caleb’s backstory for a modern ‘verse has already been done lots of times by many very talented fic authors, and they’ve probably done it better than I would have done it. I just wasn’t interested in retelling a story that other folks have already told well!  
• Caleb’s playlist:  
o Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2KkZcBxxegCfqVyx9khKDF?si=Rugyzr6rQpWAEc8Iqdn0Ww  
o Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLypmdPa8wvVLdz-WZrXDnHAv4ct5HVSKk

NOTT  
• As a child, Nott’s favorite Disney princess was Ariel because her bra-made-of-shells inspired Nott to make her own unusual DIY clothing items (namely, button jewelry)  
• Nott’s favorite thing to shoplift is nail polish, not because she really uses it but because it looks pretty arranged in rainbow order on a shelf (of course, Jester does start using it once she finds out that Nott owns so much)  
• Her most immediate goal right now is to save up to get a little Moped or Vespa that she can ride around  
• Her other immediate goal was to figure out a way to climb up to the attic from outside the house using the gutter, but Caleb put an end to that as soon as he found out about it  
• The most exciting moment in her recent life was when Caduceus gave her a piggyback ride and she felt taller than she’s ever felt  
• She secretly wants Caleb to get married so she can be the flower girl  
• A_nonymous_ooo asked: What type of character would Nott play in DnD with Yeza?  
o My headcanon is that Nott would want to play a beefy barbarian so she could live out an alternate universe where she’s big instead of small! Just for fun, these are my other headcanons, at least in the universe of this fic: Molly would play a bard specializing in improv acting, Fjord a standard-issue fighter, Caduceus a druid, Yasha a Tempest Domain cleric, Beau a double-wielding rogue, Jester a sorcerer with anime-magical-girl-esque powers, and I honestly do believe that Caleb would choose to play a wizard :)

CADDIE  
• Cad dyed his hair pink for the first time when he was twelve and he literally never looked back  
• He and Molly were actually not very close before they decided to live together, but Cad immediately took a strong liking to Molly  
• In this universe he is aro/ace, although I realized that I never explicitly specified that in the fic!  
• He knows how to do stick-and-poke tattoos and has done them for his siblings  
• In this ‘verse, he has three mothers in a poly lesbian relationship  
• His favorite Wiccan holiday is Ostara (spring equinox) and his favorite way to celebrate is by making enchanted flower arrangements and giving them to his loved ones  
• He’s not a huge talker in general but will go off about eco-friendly funeral arrangements if asked (and nobody in this fic ever asked)  
• The only music he listens to is that dreamy New Age music they play in yoga classes or in the background of guided meditations  
• A_nonymous_ooo asked: Would you ever introduce Caduceus’ family? My answer: I would! Although I have a confession to make – I’ve been so busy in the last few months that I’m not totally caught up on Critical Role itself, so I haven’t actually met Cad’s family in canon! Once I do catch up though, I could very much see myself writing a Cad-and-family sequel one-shot if folks would be interested in that kind of thing :)

YASHA  
• Yasha’s favorite types of movies are period romances – the restrained longing hits her right in the heart  
• Her favorite Harry Potter character is Hagrid and she considers herself a Hufflepuff  
• Eventually, Cad helps her grow her own flowerbed in the garden. Her favorite flowers that she plants are white roses  
• The first time she took Beau out on a date, they went to an art museum and Beau said she looked “prettier than all the art”. And Yasha genuinely thought that was a good line  
• When she was little she wanted to be a rockstar when she grew up  
• She speaks eight languages including Vlax Romani, the language Jester’s family speaks. She also knows traditional Russian dancing  
• In Russia she used to ride a motorcycle, although she hasn’t gotten one yet in the U.S. (which is probably good, because Beau would lose her goddamn mind)  
• Yasha loves all animals but she thinks cats are the cutest  
• She likes wearing heart-shaped ear jewelry  
• She collects seashells from the beach and sets them in a row on her windowsill  
• Yasha’s playlist:  
o Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3JdFgJtrpRPNtUk95e58vX?si=DQ4aLmXxRxK_GxoKxsfR_w  
o Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLypmdPa8wvVItnmhp4eF0QQLYZ5sxQQ6r  
• A_nonymous_ooo asked: Do you think you would ever introduce Zuala to this verse, even in passing?  
o It was only very vaguely hinted at in chapter 40, but my concept for Yasha’s back story is that she was kicked off the Russian women’s national team for being outed as a lesbian, and I imagine that Zuala or a Zuala-like figure would be a part of that story. I didn’t end up exploring that thread very much in this fic because I felt it would darken the tone of the story – although this fic does have a little darkness here and there, I tried to keep it brief, somewhat vague, and limited to one short chapter at a time. Delving much deeper into that storyline would require a lot more plot attention to do it justice. I could potentially see myself writing a Yasha prequel one-shot for this universe, if folks are interested in something angsty!

MOLLY  
• Aside from acting, Molly also knows how to sing and play the guitar and mandolin. He’s also done stand-up comedy once or twice  
• He wasn’t a major-major celebrity, but he was famous enough to do one of those “____ reads Thirst Tweets” Buzzfeed videos  
• He can do Irish dancing, salsa, tango, a little bit of flamenco, and the choreography from several popular Bollywood movies  
• He taught himself to read tarot in high school because he thought it would make him seem more unique and "quirky"  
• His favorite color is – you guessed it – purple  
• His favorite movie when he was a kid was Jodhaa Akbar (he was into the costumes, the music, and the dramatic romance)  
• He was the type of famous person who always had really memorable interactions with his fans – for example, he kept chocolate coins in his pockets to give out to any kids he met  
• After moving to San Francisco he started taking a Zumba class with a bunch of middle-aged ladies  
• One of his longest-running anxieties in life is whether to wear a fabulous suit or a fabulous gown at his wedding  
• Molly’s playlist:  
o Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3W2IZPVbD8av2QslZwQAb5?si=13IcKrQ_RmKDR-2uHm7vGQ  
o Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLypmdPa8wvVJDT3Td3R6r67v0Gtz77wjJ  
• Re: Molly’s gender identity – Why did I use he/him pronouns and other masculine signifiers for Molly in this fic?  
o The short answer is that in canon the characters (and the players as well) refer to him with he/him pronouns, so I just followed their lead. The slightly longer answer is that nonbinary people use all kinds of pronouns and are comfortable with a variety of types of gender signifying terms and none of that undermines the validity of their gender identity, even if they only or mostly use either she/her or he/him.  
o And the actually long answer has to do with my own personal headcanon about Molly’s gender. Genderfluidity is a complex category, and genderfluid people may express their identity in lots of ways that vary from person to person. As someone who personally identifies as genderfluid, I am comfortable going by all pronouns and don’t necessarily mind if folks tend to fall back on one set of pronouns for me. However, all things being equal, I feel more affirmed by folks who only use he/him or they/them for me than folks who only use she/her for me – since I’m generally read as female by people who don’t know me, falling back on she/her pronouns sometimes comes across as a way for someone to disguise the fact that they’re uncomfortable with my identity. As such, this is why I personally headcanon Molly as transmasc. That’s the way I can imagine him being comfortable with always using he/him pronouns – assuming he was not assigned male at birth (or woke up with a body that would traditionally be designated as "male" – you know what I mean), the masculine signifiers would feel affirming of his transness, even if he doesn’t necessarily identify as fully or only masculine. *Important*: I should mention that this is certainly not the case for all nonbinary and genderfluid folks - it's just my own headcanon drawn from my personal experience.  
o I call this a headcanon because in canon, we don’t actually know very much about the nuances of Molly’s gender identity – he wasn’t really around long enough for that to be explored in depth. As I mentioned, genderfluidity is complex and unique to each person, and we don’t know how Molly, in canon, feels about his gender. Although I as a genderfluid person am okay with going by one set of pronouns, that isn’t true of all genderfluid people and it may not be true of Molly. Additionally, the fact that the other PC’s mostly use he/him pronouns for Molly has a different context depending on what gender they “read” him as when they first met him. As someone who is often read as female, he/him pronouns feel affirming of my transness, but the same wouldn’t necessarily be true of someone who is often read as male.  
o Fans have all sorts of headcanons about Molly’s genderfluidity and many people personally identify with him and/or with their headcanons about him. For some folks, his gender identity and the way the CR cast have handled it is a touchy subject. That was largely the reason I didn’t explore Molly’s gender much in this fic – I wanted to let people headcanon his gender how they preferred. However, I do love writing about trans and queer storylines, and so in future fics set in this universe I may write more about it (in the context of my own interpretation) if that’s something people are interested in reading!

FJORD  
• Fjord’s decorating style and fashion sense is pretty minimalist, but he does have a set of underwear with sea animals on them that he wears pretty much every day  
• In college, Fjord was double majoring in Business (because it’s what everyone else in his frat was doing) and Marine Biology (his real interest)  
• He watches a Ted Talk every day on his lunch break so he can learn things  
• His top 5 most used apps on his phone are: mobile Microsoft Excel (where he keeps track of his budget), pedometer app so he can get his 10,000 steps in, his sobriety recording app, a spiritual meditation app that Cad got him interested in, and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp (Jester made him download it so he would be friends with her on it but he actually finds it very relaxing)  
• He has a small tattoo of a surfboard on his hip that he got when he was a lifeguard  
• Jester was right: everybody DID have a crush on him when he was a lifeguard  
• His first movie crushes were Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner from the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie  
• A million years ago someone commented asking if Fjord is demi in this universe, and the answer is yes! I get demi vibes from Fjord in canon so I decided to write him that way in this fic.  
• Fjord’s storyline in this fic was probably among the angstier ones (maybe even the angstiest) and it was because as someone who’s struggled with addiction, the U’kotoa storyline (I’m probably not spelling that correctly) in canon strikes me as a really powerful parallel to addiction, whether or not that was Matt and Travis’s intention. I really wanted to write modern Fjord as a recovering addict working on improving his mental health. Of course, it’s not easy to write that story without allowing a little darkness into an otherwise lighthearted fic. I did my best to address those themes without delving into them super deeply, because I felt a deeper dive would require a) a lot more plot attention and writing space devoted to Fjord and b) a heavier tone than I really wanted for this particular fic. In my own experience as someone who struggles with mental health, the darkness and light live alongside each other, and happy, playful moments often coexist with undercurrents of difficult processes. Recovery is both ugly and beautiful at the same time. I tried my best to convey that duality in Fjord's-perspective chapters. Like I've been saying for all the threads that weren't fully explored in this fic - if folks are interested in a heavier, more serious mental-health-recovery-focused fic about Fjord, I could potentially see myself writing that!  
• Fjord’s playlist:  
o Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6wzTHDnxzxibRoUnbxrLLH?si=t24YNfH8QVmumFDnzh71DA  
o Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLypmdPa8wvVLWXU6U5PKGTBR9Aj24llMV  
• RecallThePet asked: I was wondering if Fjord would begin to follow a similar religion to Caduceus like in canon?  
o Yes! It was only very briefly mentioned in chapter 50, but Fjord does end up gaining an interest in Wicca through Caduceus. It was just one of those threads that I didn’t really end up exploring because I didn’t want the fic to be 5,000 chapters long! If yall are interested, though, I may write a follow-up one-shot on this topic!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading!! I love and cherish every single one of you <3 I hope you have an amazing day, a wonderful week, a marvelous month, and a banner year. (And happy Ostara to my Wiccan/pagan readers!)
> 
> I'm still deciding which follow-up fics to write for this universe, so if you're interested, feel free to let me know in the comments which themes, characters, or character duos you'd most like to read more of!
> 
> Again, thank you all so much for the support, kindness, and love. I really couldn't ask for a sweeter group of readers. A piece of my heart belongs to you (yes, you reading this right now!)

**Author's Note:**

> help i just wrote this because i love serial vignettes and reading wholesome slice-of-life stories about love and family helps me calm my anxiety! I mainly wrote it for myself at first but I figured other people might enjoy it too so I decided to post it! I hope u like it! <3


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